

Crowdsourcing Comedy on Amazon Reviews - UsNThem
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/crowdsourcing-comedy-on-amazon-reviews/

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nfnaaron
I enjoyed this, but much more interesting was a link from one of the comments
to this talk by Jared Spool, "user interface expert." _Revealing Design
Treasures From The Amazon_

[http://www.slideshare.net/jmspool/revealing-design-
treasures...](http://www.slideshare.net/jmspool/revealing-design-treasures-
from-the-amazon?type=presentation)

Kind of a breezy discussion of what Amazon does to improve the user experience
and its bottom line, and why "Do it like Amazon" may not work for you.

Slide number 86/91 was a jaw-dropper for me. It was part of his section on
"never forget the business."

What the slide shows is that any retail business buys product at day zero and
pays for it at day 45.

Best Buy turns their inventory over in 74 days. So on average a product is
eventually bought by a customer at day 74, and Best Buy gets the money at day
76 (processing time).

All of the days between 45 and 76 are debt.

Amazon turns their inventory in 20 days. So on average they get customer money
on day 22 for a product that Amazon bought on day zero. All the days between
22 (got the money) and 45 (must pay the supplier) are _float_.

Which is why, according to Spool, Amazon can sell most things cheaper than
everyone else. They focus on getting shit out the door quickly.

I'm sure that's not the only thing. But the fact of the float must contribute
quite a bit, and is probably very welcome.

