16 hours ago, No Mulligans said:

I remember looking at the prospectus for Amazon back in the 90's.  I remember saying to my CFO for a NYSE publicly traded company, "if they're showing only losses for their 5 year projection, how could anyone invest in them"?  He agreed.

Doh!

Regarding low prices.

We had a long time sporting goods chain announce they were closing last week, Sports Chalet.  Kmart/Sears just announced they are closing 78 stores.

It used to be the big box stores were wiping out small business.  Now, Amazon is going to start wiping out the big box stores.  The next 10 years is going to be interesting.

Meanwhile with the increase in the minimum wage in Calif. in addition to rents, how can brick and mortar stores compete?  A small business can't keep their employees fully productive during their work day given the lower volumes and sometimes empty or nearly empty stores.  Amazon not only has much lower rent as a % of revenue but can keep their employees fully productive 24/7, i.e. much lower payroll as a % of revenue.

With regards to e-commerce, I'm guessing as long as it's able to keep shipping costs minimal, it maintains its price advantage. Its profit margins have historically been in the low single digits (and in the red not uncommon) vs Apple (granted, different markets), around 35-40% in recent years. Everyone argues that Bezos is building market share and dominance. When is the tipping point when that dominance turns into profits? What changes as it grows bigger and bigger will it have on B&M and the way we shop? I look ahead with trepidation as I continue to buy from Amazon with hesitancy. If its drones block my OTA signal as I watch The Masters, I'm boycotting Amazon! Speaking of big, somebody, please, stop Comcast. Another scary company.

So again, this time needed some plumbing parts, went to local plumbing supply stores, none of them had the required parts, go to Amazon, found them, $8 shipping next day, two days is free, but needed them ASAP. Should have just gone straight to Amazon. 

See what I mean?

http://www.geekwire.com/2016/amazon-prime-airplane-seafair/

BE VERY AFRAID

Quote

Like a lot of other people, he wanted to know what was going on. “Are you aiming to take over that last mile?” Mossberg asked.

Bezos shook his head. He said Amazon was creating a delivery network that added to—and didn’t replace—those of FedEx, UPS, and the U.S. Postal Service. “It’s not that we are trying to take over,” he said.

“You’re not trying to put FedEx out of business?” Mossberg prodded him.

“No,” Bezos said.

“Or get better prices from them?”

“No, in fact what we want …” Then Bezos paused for a moment and smiled. “Well, we’d always like better prices,” he said. “Yeah, feel free.” The audience laughed, and Bezos completed his thought: “We will take all the capacity that the U.S. Postal Service can give us and that UPS can give us and we still need to supplement it. So we’re not cutting back. We’re growing our business with UPS. We’re growing our business with the U.S. Postal Service.”

Quote

Last September, Amazon introduced an on-demand delivery program called Amazon Flex. With Flex, people with transportation and some time on their hands log in to an app, indicate their availability, and then pick up and deliver Prime Now packages, much as Uber drivers do with people. Amazon Flex deliveries come in handy when there’s an unexpected surge in Prime Now orders, such as before a blizzard on the East Coast when the entire island of Manhattan is stocking up on canned soup. In the early hours of July 31, it was Flex couriers who transported copies of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to Prime Now customers.

http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-amazon-delivery/

Amazon Go. No checkout at the supermarket. Just walk out you get charged. Mixed feelings about this.

Quote

 Instead, customers scan their phone on a kiosk as they walk in, and Amazon automatically determines what items customers take from the shelves. After leaving the store, Amazon charges their account for the items and sends a receipt.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-grocery-store-concept-to-open-in-seattle-in-early-2017-1480959119

First drone delivery in Cambridge, England. 

https://www.engadget.com/2016/12/14/amazon-completes-its-first-drone-powered-delivery/?sr_source=Twitter

Amazon trying to co-opt the brick and mortar checkout process?

Gotcha! Have been buying cat food from Amazon for awhile, didn't do the Dash/kitchen counter renewal thing because reports of price manipulation lock in. Noticed the monthly cost of cat food went up 17%, didn't think cheaper prices were out there, but guess what, found another vendor with the original Amazon pricing, free shipping and got an extra 15% off . SUCK IT AMAZON. 

10 minutes ago, parman said:

Prime is a good deal with the video as a bonus.

I kinda wish I could get the old Prime back - just the free two-day shipping, please, at a lower cost.

8 minutes ago, Kalnoky said:

My wife and I have Prime and we love it. The video is at minimum equal to Netflix. I have found Amazon's customer service is exceptional. 

My brother lives in Seattle and they are all scared of Amazon up there. In my heart I also want to support local shops, but it's hard to justify a 30% markup for bad service and limited selection. For what it's worth, I buy very little golf stuff on Amazon. 

Something I've always found a little bid creepy about Amazon is how the prices fluctuate on the day to day - up 2% one day, down 3% the next - and so on. They know exactly what we are adding and taking off our wish lists.. 

I think there were reports it adjusted pricing based on what machine you're using - Mac vs PC and they charged Mac users more.  

Amazon buying Whole Foods

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-16/amazon-to-acquire-whole-foods-in-13-7-billion-bet-on-groceries

So Whole Foods just verifies Ben Thompson's quote - something like, "Amazon's goal is to take a cut of the ECONOMY." As I've said before, this company is scary.

Quote

I said at the beginning that Mackey mis-understood Amazon’s goals, strategies, and tactics, and while that is true, the bigger error was in misunderstanding Amazon itself: unlike Whole Foods Amazon has no desire to be a grocer, and contrary to conventional wisdom the company is not even a retailer. At its core Amazon is a services provider enabled — and protected — by scale.

Indeed, to the extent Waterloo is a valid analogy, Amazon is much more akin to the British Empire, and there is now one less obstacle to sitting astride all aspects of the economy.

https://stratechery.com/2017/amazons-new-customer/

Quote

Jeff Bezos's big bet is that he can make buying from Amazon so effortless that we won't notice the company's creeping grip on commerce and its underlying infrastructure, and that we won't notice what that dominance costs us.

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/7xpgvx/amazons-is-trying-to-control-the-underlying-infrastructure-of-our-economy

Most Prime customers don't comparison shop: 

https://www.geekwire.com/2015/amazon-prime-discourages-most-people-from-comparison-shopping-online/

I still do. Cat food went up 20% out of the blue so I went to Chewy instead. Then noticed price went back down. The variable pricing, though pandemic, pisses me off.