Posted on 01/23/2017 3:36:10 PM PST by Lorianne
Millions of retail jobs are threatened as Amazon’s share of online purchases keeps climbing ___ Amazon.com has been crowing about its plans to create 100,000 American jobs in the next year, but as with other recent job-creation announcements, that figure is meaningless without context.
What Amazon won’t tell us is that every job created at Amazon destroys one or two or three others. What Jeff Bezos doesn’t want you to know is that Amazon is going to destroy more American jobs than China ever did.
Amazon has revolutionized the way Americans consume. Those who want to shop for everything from books to diapers increasingly go online instead of to the malls. And for about half of those online purchases, the transaction goes through Amazon.
For the consumer, Amazon has brought lower prices and unimaginable convenience. I can buy almost any consumer product I want just by clicking on my phone or computer — or even easier, by just saying: “Alexa: buy me one” — and it will be shipped to my door within days or even hours for free. I can buy books for my Kindle, or music for my phone instantly. I can watch movies or TV shows on demand.
But for retail workers, Amazon is a grave threat. Just ask the 10,100 workers who are losing their jobs at Macy’s.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
Not necessarily.
What I tend to buy on Amazon is stuff I can’t get locally or in a store.
And as far as food, I make every effort to buy from the grower so the stores and middlemen don’t scarf up all the profits.
As far as electronic go, Best Buy is trying to hang in there with decent prices. Hopefully they can continue to make a go of it as they employee a lot of Associates.
I thought there was a hierarchy of quality:
Walmart
Kohls
J.C.Penneys
Macys
etc.
I figured the online stuff was Walmart - JC Penneys quality.
I make a point to not buy anything from Amazon. We need to stop providing dollars to Liberal companies.
The wife only went to one bricks and mortar store this Christmas.
Buy AMZN.
JJill
Orvis
Eddie Bauer
Tommy Bahama
Vineyard Vines
All online.
I’m all for buying as locally as possible.
And for re-using, re-purposing items.
I try to buy quality items rather than just cheap but this is a challenge.
“The wife.” Said as if it is remotely related. Would it be “your wife?” :)
“Generally speaking anything other than a younger guy with a good back need not apply for the Amazon Warehouse / UPS Driver jobs.”
I’ve two friends both 70 years old + who recently got jobs in
Amazon warehouses in Minnesota.
...hassle of returning items.”
It’s worse than a hassle in some cases. Bought something for $9.95 and it didn’t work so decided to send it back. Drove to the post office and found out that return postage, which was not reimbursed, was going to cost almost $8.00. So I kept the item and will just put it in a garage sale.
Rarely ever buy anything on-line any more unless it’s basic office supplies and then I get them from our local Staples but do have them delivered free or charge.
I find myself buying more and more on line - AND I HATE IT.
I would much rather shop at a store -if they would carry the brands I want! All of these stores, especially grocery stores, create their own brands. And as soon as their brands show up, they cut back on everybody else.
If my wife and I are going to get the products we want (and in some cases have used for decades) we are left with no choice but to buy them on line.
And I do hate it!
Missing in all of this is the fact that Amazon can offer items that retailers can’t or won’t. Several times last year I was forced to Amazon for that one reason.
It is easy to characterize us as neo-Luddites, but I think we are reaching a point in history where machines are becoming an all too real threat to human life and human happiness.
I have been posting a thread on another website for about a decade detailing how robots will eventually be used as efficient killing machines by the powers that be. I link to news articles featuring some latest advancement in robot or energy weapon development, and it has become a quite frightening array of advances in technology.
But this is only the war fighting aspect of what technology is doing. This economic end of things promises to render us powerless without the need to fire a shot.
Machines are going to render many human jobs obsolete. They are already wrecking hell out of the lawyer industry, and they will eventually start eroding human participation in the medical industry.
Labor robots are not that far away.
We are shortly going to see a period where humans become to a large extent, superfluous. What jobs they do will eventually be done better and cheaper by machines, and whoever owns the machines will have complete control over the means of production.
And then what will the people do? Welfare existence? (till the rulers tire of it anyway.)
I use Amazon for convenience, but they do NOT always have the best prices.
They are creating jobs with warehouses and their own delivery services. In addition, they allow small businesses to sell through the Amazon portal giving them greater reach. The reduction in retail positions is just an evolution of commerce.
But, I am still going to get groceries myself and a lot of essentials in person.
Since 1999, I’ve never had an order not delivered. The only times there were issues and the item was going to be late? Amazon fulfilled the items again - my wife got two pairs of gloves one Christmas.
...But for retail workers, Amazon is a grave threat....
Al Gore’s fault. He invented the Internet you know.
All of those jobs were doomed by Eli Whitney. Some just hung around until Ford finished them off. If it hadn't been Ford, it would have been someone else.
We live in a rural area, and choices are limited. We used to order stuff through Sears or Montgomery Ward Catalog. During the great inflation and stagflation periods, they went out of business.
Now we order stuff online, but only stuff that isn’t available in our local stores.
After 40 years it really doesn’t matter ... :-)
My grandfather was born in 1880 and died in 1968. He lived through the destruction of the horse and buggy industry, with millions of jobs ranging from horse breeding, to buggy and buggy accessory manufacturing, to manure transportation (a huge industry in itself in most cities). It seems to me that one or two new industries were created during that time to replace them.
"You know, at one time there must've been dozens of companies making buggy whips. And I'll bet the last company around was the one that made the best goddamn buggy whip you ever saw. Now how would you have liked to have been a stockholder in that company?"
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