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.
Well aren’t you a little ray of sunshine!