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 ...
I've never had an Amazon order get lost.
I didn’t realize people bought upscale clothing online.
I buy bricks and mortar from Amazon.
I think this is the post of the day.
I went to sites like ABE (Advanced Book Exchange) for used books but within the last few years an Amazon search taps into ABE and scores of other used book sellers so I have a better chance of finding what I’m looking for.
When I need a rare gun part I can go to GunBroker and usually find it fast. I still support local gun sellers but the nationwide reach of online businesses certainly give them an advantage with hard-to-find items.
We’re a good half an hour from the nearest anything too, and only in one direction do they really have the somethings, the stores.
For all people think NY is all one big city, there are some pretty desolate places in NYS, that are quite a ways from any city of any size.
And not all the cities have all the stores.
Amazon is a Godsend to people living in the country.
“...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?...”
I understand. Our family fortune was invested heavily in North American Whalebone. It was used for corsets and many other products.
It's a two-edged sword.
Same here. I know you can return things that don’t fit or feel right, but it’s a hassle to me. Once I find things I like (certain L.L. Bean shirts, for example), I have no problem repeat-ordering online.
In my neck of the woods, USPS and UPS are interchangeable. Which one delivers to the house is random, regardless of what is indicated online or on the package.
I’ve been making this exact point repeatedly here, but some on FR are immune to facts.
Saturday I was looking for Birthday cards with a theme of a college football team ( Gamecocks ). Ones available in my area brick and mortar stores, zero. Only available on line.
But, if it was Mr. Coffee coffeemaker I wanted, I recall seeing one almost everytime I go into a Target. Since i recently moved, I also needed a new blender and mixer. Possibly bad for other vendors, I just open up Amazon and order.
Since I have Amazon Prime, like everyone else does, i just go there and buy it cause I’ve already seen them in the stores.
Amazon Prime promises delivery in 24 hours. in the morning I check amazon orders and it will tell me if it’s delivered yet or not. Amazingly to me, USPS delivers up until midnight here in Los Angeles.
Me, and all of neighbors are getting packages all night! Yip!
“I use Amazon for convenience, but they do NOT always have the best prices.’
My experience as well.
My grandmother sold corsets door to door in NYC in the 1930s.
Before that she worked in a music store playing the piano to sell sheet music. That was pretty much the entire music industry back then, instruments and sheet music.
“That was pretty much the entire music industry back then, instruments and sheet music. “
The lucky few had the old,breakable,78s.
We couldn’t afford it.
.
That article conflates jobs and production output. Yes output is up, but output is up in China, and they have added millions of manufacturing jobs to support US outsourcing. If that hadn’t happened, then manufacturing output in the US would be even higher, and there would be more manufacturing jobs. We’d still have lost jobs to automation, but vastly fewer.
Ever heard of an Amazon fulfillment center? UPS/FEDEX?
How about the thousands of trucks moving that freight and all other associated industries?
I mean, who wants to go to all the hassle and danger to go to the mall unless absolutely necessary?
Amazon just figured out a different sales model. All the rest of the logistical infrastructure either remains the same or expands.
And there’s at least a million millionaires in Seattle because of technology. Which beats $10/hr any day.
Be prepared to be called all sorts of names for telling the truth about this. Some people are stubbornly resistant to facts.
Amazon has installed lockers at a nearby retail complex where you can drop off returns with no postage, and many who sell through amazon offer free returns. For me, it’s the going out and shopping that’s the hassle.
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