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 ...
Yup. (Was going to post something similar but you beat me to it.)
Had that happen with a fairly expensive piece of electronic equipment. Emailed Amazon. They simply sent another. No muss, no fuss.
When I buy from a catalog all I get is the description written by the seller, who is not an unbiased source. And, sometimes finding the item I want can be challenging, especially if I don't know its exact name.
When I buy from Amazon I get reviews from other purchasers. And, I get a search engine to help me find things. Even if I don't know the exact name or how to spell it. And, I get good, if not the best pricing. A lot better than the old printed catalogs.
I think there will always be retail, but Amazon will definitely give them a run for their money. And, will keep their prices in line.
I saw that Ivanka Trump clothing and footwear is sold on Amazon. I don't know where that falls on the quality scale, but I'd assume it's quite a ways above Walmart.
And the ratings, if you read them carefully, help keep you from buying crap products. I’ve bought so many things that were junk, or turned out not to be a good design, that I had a saying for a while that 97% of everything you buy is crap.
The difference is that Amazon wants to remove humans from the process altogether. From the apple tree to the fruit basket on your counter.
There is no shifting of jobs here, just jobs that are gone.
Why?
Well, that is going to change.
I read the ratings and they are helpful. I never buy anything that is not rated 4 stars or up. Most of what I’ve purchased has been satisfactory.
Sometimes the comments/ratings are very funny. :)
I buy bricks and mortar from Amazon.
I live in a North Texas town of much less than two thousand people.
I like being able to buy things at all without planning a trip to the city.
I have no problem whatsoever with retail stores existing.
I have a huge problem with filthy socialists desiring to tax out of existence or regulate to death businesses willing to sell to me without me having to travel.
Do unto others.
Let’s see this play out without any government interference.
US manufacturing output has never been higher, it just takes fewer people to do it.
The main loss of jobs is from govt creating costs that make employing lower skilled workers unprofitable.
Ma bell. Break the company up
You figured without bothering to do any research of any sort.
That sort of figuring is usually called a wild assed guess.
You can often buy high end products from stores run by the manufacturer online. Things that you can buy no other way.
What exactly do you think will change? That my local Staples won’t be delivering our office supplies or....?
My exact question. Are people buying less products for their lives, homes, gifts? If they are buying the same number of items, how are jobs lost, other than the salespeople? In a lot of instances over the last 20 years, salespeople have been less than useful. Often they don’t even speak competent English. I’m ok with reading reviews from buyers rather than hearing “keekboard? What ees a keekboard?” At your local shop.
You can’t tell me Amazon isn’t employing a lot of people at all sectors of their operation.
I liked Amazon much more before they charged me sales tax.
What steers me more and more to buying online from Amazon and other retailers is when I make the 27 mile, 40 minute each way drive to buy for a specific need and then can't find it once I get there.
I wanted a dish drainer to replace the one I had that was broke. I stop at Target. They had some, but not what I wanted. Drive over to another retailer. No luck there either. So when I get home I go on Amazon and find exactly what I want and order it.
I wanted to get a couple of 30 gallon metal trash cans for storing birdseed. Stop at Menards (pretty much like a Lowes, for those who don't know). They had 20 gallon cans, but no 30 gallon cans. So I drive to a farm/feed store. They had one can, but it was missing a lid, due to a supplier error. When I get home I look on Amazon. Prices look a bit high, so I look around some more. I find the 30 gallon cans I wanted at FleetFarm.com. Including shipping, they cost less than the 20 gallon cans at the local retailer.
I ordered a 50 pound bag of sulfur online once, because after going to three or four garden supply stores, and seeing only 3-4 pound bags available for ridiculous prices I knew that I could burn up time and money driving around for a week to different stores and never find what I wanted at a fair price. Sure, I could have bought enough 3-4 pounds bags locally, but the 50 pound bag cost about the same (with shipping) as 10 pounds bought locally.
Or I go to the store for a new pair of jeans. They have jeans of course, but they just happen to be out of my size after I've made that 27 mile, 40 minute each way drive.
The inability to find what I want in a local brick and mortar store has happened so often that now I just assume they don't have it and order what I want online. I don't like having to settle for what the local store has in stock, when I have every reason to believe I can get what I really want by just ordering online.
My dad was so cheap he squeaked.
I learned the hard way to buy better quality and not buy junk twice and end up spending more money in the long run and still have junk.
Mr. mm sometimes still has that mentality but we’re working on it.
One of the best ways I’ve found to do it is to look at the cheapest, it’ll do what I want, and compare it to the one I want that’s better quality and then figure, I’ll be spending the money anyway, cause we need it so is the difference in cost worth it for the better quality.
Usually yes, but sometimes, no.
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