
Day Two to One Day - kaboro
https://stratechery.com/2019/day-two-to-one-day/
======
aresant
Anazon is better than ever for brand name, known buys. Eg I recently ordered a
UHD bluray movie, took about 15 seconds end to end and arrived in a day.

They are terrible for everything else. Eg I bought a reading light.

Which was a 10 minute sorting excersise trying to figure out which of a dozen
nearly identical products was the least likely to burn down my house. Then
trying to uncover which had real reviews and not switched etc. I hit the
roulette wheel and ultimately got a unit that arrived DOA.

My trust in the last two years has deteriorated massively in their platform,
as a consumer I am absolutely suseptable to a “quality first” disruptor.

And amazon is obviously jam packed with smart people, so what am I missing
about their apparent lack of focus or execution on this commonly lamented
problem?

~~~
vimota
I totally agree - we built [https://indieshops.co/](https://indieshops.co/) in
order to solve for the "quality first" alternative you mentioned.

We found that the majority of online shopping today consisted of 1) buying
basics (read: cheap mass products) on Amazon or 2) getting advertised brands
to you on Instagram/Fb/Google and hoping the one you like finds you. We hope
that Indieshops provides an alternative where you can discover high quality
brands.

~~~
OJFord
Nice! Any plans for other markets (and filtering for them)? I gather it's all
'made with love in the USA' currently.

And how big is too big to be called 'indie'? If you take it quite literally it
disallows having two shop fronts, but then to disallow that and allow online-
only international-shipping... Just curious how you draw a line.

~~~
vimota
Thanks for the feedback! We're not deliberately making it US-only (in fact we
have a few Canadian and Euro companies) but agree that navigating by market
(or delivers-to) would be very useful!

We too are wrestling with that question, what should be the threshold for an
"indie" company? We don't want to limit it so much that it's not useful for
day-to-day shopping (ie too niche/etsy-ish), but haven't been too prescriptive
yet about how big is too big. Hopefully users like you could help us define
it!

------
ChuckMcM
There is so much about Amazon that is clearly in the 'Day 2' territory. I am
not as swayed by one day shipping as the author is. Yes, its a big challenge
and yes it makes things even more likely that Amazon will hurt brick and
mortar stores (as an experiment look at the commercial retail space in your
town and see how many 'things' retailers there are. Not as many as there were,
and in some places entire city blocks have given way to 'services' retailers
(salons and restaurants)

Amazon continues to struggle with counterfeits in their inventory. They
continue to struggle with market vendors who give shoddy service. They
continue to struggle with customer perception when something is "sold by
amazon" and then ships from Malaysia by boat. They continue to have failures
in even their 2 day "prime" when the two days only starts when the item ships,
and it can take a week for an item to go from "ordered" to "shipped". And as
they crack down on both buyer and seller fraud, it gets harder for legitimate
customers to make a return claim.

All in all I am pretty bearish on them.

~~~
petra
>> All in all I am pretty bearish on them.

Who will "kill" them ? What will the e-commerce market look like in 10 years -
and could that be without Amazon as a major competitor ?

~~~
the_watcher
I'm not bearish on Amazon, but it seems realistic that someone could build an
aggregator of Shopify (or other owner-operated storefronts) sites. For
example, a Shopify aggregator/product search engine that had any kind of
meaningful traction could try to build a checkout integration with merchants
using Shopify payments and take a cut of revenue, or just sell ads the same
way Amazon does.

Maybe this already exists to some extent, and I'm sure there's a lot I'm not
considering, but I think it's exceedingly realistic to build a competitor to
Amazon that focuses on addressing some core complaints of both sides of the
marketplace: product quality, counterfeiting, and producer control.

Should caveat that I'm ignoring AWS entirely and am aware of the irony that
there's a substantial chance an Amazon competitor would be built on top of
Amazon's infra.

~~~
petra
// product quality, counterfeiting, and producer control

Those all come from a single reason: commingling - mixing the same product but
from different sellers, when fulling an order.

I could see shopify setting up a system of letting sellers buy a certain
original product from a manufacturer - and sending it to some warehouse and
selling it on their aggregated store.

Let's say this solves co-mingling.

Than it would a be a great time for Amazon to copy that.

And it would e quite easy for them.

~~~
the_watcher
> I could see shopify setting up a system of letting sellers buy a certain
> original product from a manufacturer - and sending it to some warehouse and
> selling it on their aggregated store.

Isn't this just dropshipping (already an extremely popular behavior on
Shopify). The aggregator I'm describing is one where the aggregator is _just_
solving product discovery, but limited to non-Amazon storefronts, ideally
limited to the product's owner, even if white labeled (doesn't entirely solve
the quality issue, but would help with explicit counterfeiting at least). A
core part of the value prop would be that it gives you direct access to the
seller (some of whom may explicitly not list on Amazon) without Amazon as an
intermediary.

Google _kind of_ does this, but one of the reasons people go to Amazon is they
know the entire SERP will be products, so if they're ready to buy, it's often
the fastest way to get to place where they can click "Buy". The aggregator I'm
thinking of is really a more aggressively curated, non-Amazon version of this.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
Product search is about more than "discovery". You need to categorize products
to distinguish variations like size and color. That requires real human
curators and a revenue stream to pay them.

~~~
the_watcher
Categorization is very possible without human curation, particularly if you're
ingesting structured data (as would be likely in the case of a Shopify site
aggregator/search engine). And the idea wouldn't be for this to be non-revenue
generating, it would generate revenue via revshare on purchases or ads.

------
allthecybers
One-day shipping is definitely a logistical leap for mankind but I often
wonder the environmental impact that is accrued in the pursuit of total
convenience.

Also, their Prime branded delivery trucks are driven by gig workers,
essentially making Prime the Uber of the delivery world.

I just wonder how sustainable it all is. What level of convenience will be
demanded next and what cost will that pose to the environment and to the part-
time or gig workers who keep it moving.

~~~
emiliobumachar
I guess it might be a net good environmentally. Packaging is bad, but driving
to the nearest store to get a single item could be worse. Convenient delivery
will decrease the latter.

~~~
jfk13
On the other hand, if I'm going to drive to the store, I'm likely to plan
ahead a little and pick up a number of items in one trip, rather than ordering
them one by one online. (Or even ordering them all at once through Amazon, but
having them arrive in a dozen separate deliveries.)

I don't remember when I last _drove_ to a store to get a single item. (I do
occasionally walk or cycle down to the high street for an individual item such
as milk, though it's more usually a handful of things.)

------
madamelic
My wonder is how large a company can get before the founder can no longer
force strong culture.

The decision to favor their own products over others seems like a short-
sighted goal to help an exec get a bonus rather than help their customers

I am wondering how they can handle short-sighted, highly-motivated individuals
self-dealing rather than looking out for the company and its stated culture.

~~~
sixstringtheory
Probably something around Dunbar's number ("proposed to lie between 100 and
250, with a commonly used value of 150") [0]. I imagine it's not simply the
size of the company but how quickly it grew to that size, too.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number)

------
yuy910616
As Ben said...revenue has not showed up. I really wonder if going from 2 days
to 1 day is as valuable to consumers, and as impactful on revenue, to going
from say 1 week to 2 days.

We might not see revenue increase for years, and revenue is going to become
more expensive.

However, if AMZ continue to invest in difficult logistical challenges, the
small marginal gains in shipping time might suddenly add up to a leap: i'm
imagining going from next day to a few hours.

edit: syntax, grammar

~~~
coreyrab
Going from 2 days to 1 day has always felt more like a luxury to me – and one
I am willing to pay for when needed. For 95% of the purchases I make 2 day
shipping is more than quick enough.

~~~
groby_b
fwiw: Many of us dinosaurs remember when you ordered things on Amazon, and it
took a week and cost shipping. Prime, and 2-day shipping, felt like a luxury
you don't need. (And many of us thought long and hard if we should spend, and
then it turned out to be really convenient...)

And those of us from the Triassic period even remember the days before Amazon,
where you went to a bookstore, and you hoped they had a book that you needed,
and if not, oh well, we can get it in 4-6 weeks. And then Amazon popped up,
and you could just order online, and it felt like a luxury to have things in a
week, and then we paid for it. We didn't _need_ those books within a week,
mind. It was the Triassic, we moved slowly, and 4-6 weeks for a rare book
seemed just fine. (Because, amongst other things, it gave you an excuse to
spend the next 4-6 weeks browsing what other books the store had ;)

I'm fairly certain the same will happen to 1-day. It'll feel like a luxury.
It'll turn out to be convenient. It'll take a year or so, and then we'll all
happily pay for it.

~~~
gjm11
"Whaddya mean 'we', paleface?"

I'm a happy non-Prime Amazon customer. I buy plenty of things from them, and I
basically never need anything faster than their free shipping (which I'm
pretty sure they deliberately slow down, holding back dispatching in order to
incentivize customers to get Prime). I could easily afford a Prime
subscription, but I don't see how it's more worth the money than a hundred
other things I could drop ~£100/year on.

Are there really so few other people who feel that way?

~~~
powvans
I dropped Prime a few years ago for all the reasons that have been hashed over
many times. I've reduced my Amazon purchases drastically and not having Prime
helps.

As far as the deliberate slow down is concerned, I'm positive that they are
doing that because they tell me. About half my orders from them come 1 or 2
day shipping after a 5 day delay from the time I submit the order. I get an
email telling me that the item has shipped and will arrive tomorrow or the
next day. Then the transaction hits my credit card. It's super annoying and
I'm sure they want it that way.

------
mrfredward
I like the article, but I think a missing piece of this is that when a company
becomes a big enough conglomerate, parts can be in day 2 while other parts are
at day 1. Amazon isn't raising money from investors anymore, it's taking
profits on parts of the business and using it to expand in other places, and
Bezos himself is famous for saying a profit margin is an opportunity for
disruption.

That being said, in many ways the point of business is to end up a day 2
company. VCs invest so they can cash out in the IPO, IPO investors buy so they
can sell to other investors, those investors sell to others, and so on. It
sounds like the last guy is left holding the bag, but in fact, the people at
the end can make a fortune, even as the company is fading away, if the company
is distributing profits through dividends and buybacks. If a company dies
before it gets to that end phase though, the whole thing will have just been a
wealth transfer from later investors to the early ones.

------
the_watcher
> Amazon allegedly spent “years” deciding whether or not to do this, which is
> definitely not “high-velocity decision making”.

To be fair, the reality could be closer to "we decided not to do this at high
velocity numerous times over the years"

------
iikoolpp
TIL one-day (or, even same-day) amazon shipping isn't a thing outside of the
UK?

~~~
justinclift
It's not one-day for all of the UK either. ;)

Saying that as I lived in a ~reasonably remote part Cornwall at the time
Amazon launched 1-day shipping in the UK. Bought stuff from them literally
every day for a few months.

At first stuff really would turn up in 1 day, and it was awesome. However,
after a while I guess they figured out it was costing them a fortune in
delivery costs. So the 1-day thing silently became "2 day".

As in, when not logged in it, items would be shown as "Receive it by (say) Wed
xx" on a Tuesday. After logging in and purchasing, the expected date would
then become Thursday. Yes, even with Prime 1-day. ;)

\---

For me it's a moot point anyway, as after some bad customer service
experiences - dishonesty on Amazons part - I don't really buy anything through
Amazon any more.

------
ineedasername
The final line really stuck out to me: _" antitrust actions are a trailing
indicator of a company that has peaked, not a causal force of decline"_

------
sanbor
What is the impact to the environment? I imagine speeding up the delivery
leaves little room for delivery optimization.

1 day/same day shipping can be very useful a sometimes, but having it by
default seems wastful.

------
skybrian
The one-day shipping seems like an overreach to me, like Apple obsessing on
making its laptops thinner when they are plenty thin enough. But I guess I'm
not the target customer?

------
throwawaywindev
I wonder if the increased “harvesting” has to do with Bezos getting older.

------
frogpelt
Jeff Bezos does not have integrity. We know this because of the way he treated
Mackenzie Bezos.

Now, we just have to see how far his lack of integrity will go in his business
operation.

~~~
whamlastxmas
Tell us more about the in-depth and personal knowledge you have about the
former Bezos marriage. Were you present for their marriage counseling? Their
intimate disagreements? Tell us about how they interacted on a personal level
and what their dynamic was together.

Marriages are complicated. What we see in public is very limited and far from
the truth. Being the richest dude in the world means everything goes through a
PR filter. Suggesting you know anything at all about their marriage is
idiotic.

I say this as someone with no love for Bezos or Amazon. The assumption that
you know something because you've read tabloids is a big reason the world is
fucked right now

~~~
frogpelt
That's fair. I don't know what happened. But I assume he cheated on his wife.
I consider that not having integrity.

If I'm wrong and he didn't cheat on his wife, then I stand corrected.

I disagree with your last statement. The problems with the world are because
fewer people have integrity than because more people are believing tabloids.

~~~
whamlastxmas
He seemingly did have intimate relations with people other than his wife but
there's a very wide spectrum of marriages out there.

