Here’s what I don’t understand. Usually, although certainly not always, Amazon has the same product at the same or cheaper price. How is it that B&M stores can’t beat that?
Before everyone jumps on me telling about the cost of B&M stores, I would argue that Amazon has many very large distribution centers and many, if not more, employees.
I am by no means an Amazon apologist, in fact, it is my opinion that Amazon has gotten way too big and is, or is fast becoming, a monopoly and ripe for anti-trust review.
I admit that I hate shopping and have fallen under the spell of shopping online and having things delivered to my doorstep, but I want other retailers to innovate and compete with Amazon. Why is this not happening?
Even behemoths such as Wal*Mart are decades behind Amazon. Sears, who started the whole catalogue shopping experience which was the precursor to what Amazon currently does, is now bankrupt. Amazon started in 1996, I think. That same year I started ordering from them when they only sold books, but even back then I knew they were going to be huge. And here we are. Amazon owns most retail markets now.
Yeah, but do they sell buggy whips?
TC
it’s still way easier and cheaper to have centralized distribution centers than to run a retail business.
Amazon has 300k+ employees, whereas Sears has about 180k. But amazon does a lot more than retail, such as digital content + distribution, grocery delivery, and cloud hosting services.
They don’t have a monopoly - other people are going to be in retail, but nobody can meaningfully compete with them because of the distribution network they have built and their first-mover advantage.
It’s only going to get worse because Amazon is going to have a huge lead in automation for those distribution centers. It’s a lot easier to replace warehouse workers with robots than customer-facing employees in retail locations.
We are rapidly going to end up with a world where automation destroys employment. We’ll have very efficient ways of selling products, but nobody who can afford buying them.
Distribution centers don’t cost nearly as much as retail space. The rent is cheaper per foot, you don’t need as much available parking, you don’t need to decorate it or stock shelves, climate control is much easier, you can use cheaper less pleasing lighting, stockboys are way cheaper than sales people, no shoplifters.
Amazon isn’t anywhere near being a monopoly. They’re big, but they aren’t 80% of anything, they aren’t even 50% of most things.
And all your other companies that are having problem it boils down to the retail section. Sears made the huge mistake of buying KMart and no gutting it. WM is a discount retailer which has all kinds of other problems.