

Mighty Amazon 189
theodp writes "Fortune reports that the patent-pending practice of selling partners' used and new goods next to Amazon's own was CEO Jeff Bezos' response to the emerging threat of eBay. Seeing an opportunity to overtake the online auctioneer as well as a way to slow the need to add warehouse capacity, Bezos 'bet big and put hundreds of his best people on it.' While Bezos' decision caused a lot of discomfort at the time, including the Authors Guild protest and the subsequent e-mail campaign in Amazon's defense, today almost 20% of the e-tailer's unit volume is sold through others, yielding revenue that is almost pure profit."
profit. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:profit. (Score:1)
Re:profit. (Score:5, Interesting)
What Jeff did was to play that game, pouring any excess money back into making Amazon grow, until they finally had to show a profit. He's still doing that, and when people realize that Jeff knows the rules, and how to work around them, they'll better understand what he's doing.
I used to work with Jeff, years ago, at a place called Fitel, in New York City and London. Got to know him fairly well - he's actually a fairly accomplished hacker (in the old, good sense of the word) - as a child, overseas, he calibrated everybody's VCR digital counters, and had a BASIC program that converted between the different units, so that when the other ex-pats exchanged VCR tapes with indicators of where each show started, they'd be able to fast-forward to that spot on their VCR. Clever
So, please, folks. Realize that Jeff Bezos is one darned-clever dude, and react accordingly. He's not lost a bet that I know of in the nearly-twenty years that I've known him.
Re:profit. (Score:3, Insightful)
So by your logic it would be better for me to make $0 and not pay taxes on it than to make $100,000 a year and pay $20,000 of it in taxes?
I can understand funnelling profits (ie. any excess money) back into the business. But basically that just means making a profit and writing some of it off, all businesses do that.
Basicaly what I'm saying is its always bette
Re:profit. (Score:5, Informative)
You see as a C-Corporation, profit is pretty much the money you haven't spent on something. When you make profit, you have to give a portion of it, say 20% of it, to the government, which you never get back.
Instead, you can re-invest it into the company, and you have a bigger company that can do bigger things in the future. If you "invest" it into a company jet, you do so with company money and viola, it can be purchased at effectively 25% less (as you didn't have to pay income tax on that profit). And salaries of employeess of the company, such as that of bezos himself, are an expense and do not come out of the profits of a corperation.
Sure the company owns the plane, but you CONTROL the plane, and get all the benefits out of it.
Imagine monopoly, the board game, with the same rules as usual, but every time you hit go you write down how much money you have. If you have more money this time than the last time, you give %20 of the difference to the bank.
See how in that situation, you'd do well to spend that money on things such as improvements on your properties, and buying new properties, rather than to turn a profit?
I recommend the book, Inc and Grow Rich, to learn more about the workings of C-Corperations from a working man's perspective.
Re:profit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Practically every movie ever made in modern times does not show a profit.
For a corporation the goal not to make a profit, it's to "increase shareholder value". Turning a profit is one way to do this. Growth is another. Growth is usually achieved by taking revenue and pouring it back into expansion or R&D. Of
Re:profit. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure it is all that overrated. At least up until stock market bubble, many investors thought profits to be irrelevant, and growth to be "the thing". Back then profit was severely underrated, IMO.
Profits do matter for some things, anyways; dividends can only be paid on profit, and cash companies need for high liquidity usually comes from profits. Alternative is to accumulate debt, but really, nothing beats cash without debt, no matter what size t
Re:profit. (Score:2)
I believe you're misunderstanding a 'cash-rich' industry, inplicit in this article. A 'cash-rich' company would only [choose to] be so because growth had stalled so cash becomes preferable to reinvestment (which shows little return). I may be in a successful industry but have little cash, because its better spent (and results in increased growth).
Then the tax treatment of dividends vs balance hseet growth or reinvestment, whether funds are better raised by what
Re:profit. (Score:2)
Hmmh? Yes, companies loan to get cash, even often to just avoid using their "own" cash (raising their liquidity). But that doesn't really contradict "cash is good" statement. :-)
But I believe I was only replying to specific "profits are overrated" comment. I do understand that sometimes (often) it makes more sense to just reinvest money straight off (writing off investments), that's obvious, especially on companies in fast-growth industry sectors. This does n
Re:profit. (Score:2)
Liquidity is an opportunity cost (more liquid assets typically have less return). Yet they are useful when it comes to a cash push.
So a small amount of liquidity is always prefereble, with access to increased liquidity (so no high debt burden which will act against this) when is necessary.
Re:profit. (Score:2, Insightful)
One day the cash will run out and so will Amazon's luck.
Re:profit. (Score:2)
Please provide a citation. Theres no such rule in the United States.
Re:profit. (Score:2)
Try reading the paragraph immediately preceding the one you quote:
In determining whether you are carrying on an activity for profit, all the facts are taken into account. No one factor alone is decisive. Among the factors to consider are whether:
1. You carry on the activity in a businesslike manner,
2. The time and effort you put into the activity indicate you intend to make it profitable,
3. You depend on inc
Article Text (Score:5, Informative)
Jeff Bezos has been hailed as a visionary and put down as a goofball. He's proved critics wrong by forging a winning management strategy built on brains, guts, and above all, numbers.
FORTUNE
Monday, May 12, 2003
By Fred Vogelstein
"Mr. Bezos, can you hold that bottle of water on your head so I can make sure I'm in focus?" "Mr. Bezos, when you jump, can you spread your arms and legs in the air?" "Mr. Bezos, while you're in the air can you turn your body 90 degrees and land in a sitting position?"
Jeff Bezos is having his picture taken jumping on a giant trampoline, and, remarkably, he looks like a man in his element. Most CEOs wouldn't pose for a photo like this in a million years. Risk life and limb to look undignified? Not a chance. But Bezos, who is 39, embraces the experience with the enthusiasm of a 10-year-old in an arcade. He cracks jokes about his receding hairline, he chats up the photographer about his equipment, he even helps the photo assistants rearrange the shot. "We ought to try this on the vomit comet," he says mid-jump, referring to the plane astronauts use to simulate weightlessness. "That would be really cool." He protests only once, after 30 minutes of jumping, when the water bottle he keeps placing on his head for the photographer springs a leak. "Next time we do this I think I'm going to need a stunt double," he says. When it's all over, he pulls out his own camera and orders everyone onto the trampoline for a group shot.
Anyone who knows Bezos understands that it doesn't take much to get the founder and CEO of Amazon.com to start acting up. In good times and bad, Bezos has always been a man of exaggerated gestures, whether he is dressing up like a four-star chef to promote Amazon's kitchen store, climbing atop a conference table on all fours to signal his interest in a business presentation, or just unleashing his famous braying honk of a laugh. During the Internet bubble his oversized personality made him seem fun and inspiring, and he shrewdly used that to make himself and his company one of the most talked about business stories in a generation. When Amazon's stock price fell and its losses continued to mount, he endured whispers that his behavior made him look clueless.
Today only three questions about Bezos's behavior are relevant: Is he as goofy as Bill Gates? Is he as goofy as Michael Dell? And is he as goofy as the late Sam Walton? Such comparisons would have been laughable when conventional wisdom had Amazon joining the dot-com trash heap. Not anymore. Amazon has started to thrive. While most of American business is still sputtering, Amazon's revenues, at $4 billion, are growing by more than 20% a year. Marketing, inventory, and warehouse operating costs, once so high they made old-fashioned retailers look efficient, are now so low that only Dell's and very few others' are better. Amazon's operating profit margin, at 5% in the all-important fourth quarter, beat that of most retailers, and approached Wal-Mart's 6%. And Amazon is generating so much cash--$135 million last year, rising to an estimated $300 million this year--that it just paid off 12% of its $2.3 billion debt. At a recent $30, Amazon's share price is at a two-and-a-half-year high, making it one of the top stocks over the last five years, even taking into account its rise and fall during the bubble. It has outperformed Dell, Cisco, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and GE, to name a few.
And while Amazon still hasn't turned a profit yet, it's headed toward profitability so fast that investors have stopped worrying about whether it will ever make money. Now they simply debate how much. Profitability has taken awhile because the company borrowed heavily during the bubble to finance its growth, and interest-related expenses still suck away a lot of what flows to the bottom line. Its relatively new electronics, tools, and kitchen business is losing money too, though at a rapidly shrinking rate. But with costs falling and revenues and operating profit rising each quarter, it's exp
Re:Article Text (Score:2)
Patents again? (Score:4, Insightful)
--
Need a calculator [webcalc.net]?
Re:Patents again? (Score:5, Funny)
Jon Stewart should start patenting doing things on weed. He'd make a fortune.
"But dude, we're patenting one click ordering on weed! "
"Dude, have you ever sold books? Well, what about selling books online? Oh. Well, what about selling books online on weed?! Let's patent that, dude."
Re:Patents again? (Score:2)
Re:Patents again? (Score:2)
Re:Patents again? (Score:2)
New. Exhaling is not new, so it does not pass.
Unobvious. Whether somthing is unobvious or not is frequently a matter of great debate and difficult to judge. The most controversial cases like "one click shopping" are the ones that hit mainstream media.
Tor
My first reaction (Score:2, Funny)
Re:My first reaction (Score:2, Funny)
Small guy? Are we talking about the same article? I'm reading one about Amazon.
Re:My first reaction (Score:2)
Re:My first reaction (Score:2)
Ah, a "joke". Yes, I've heard of such things. That makes sense now.
Ha!
Re:My first reaction (Score:2)
I don't see how patents are good in this case (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that Amazon should be rewarded for having the gumption and wherewithal to blaze this trail, but I don't see how patenting things like "One click purchasing" or the idea of selling used items next to new ones can be beneficial. They have already demonstrated that they are winning market share because of a commitment to improving efficiency and technology, and those are the best reasons to retain market share. Not preventing anyone else from doing something similar.
This is a GOOD patent. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is a GOOD patent. (Score:2)
It's an idea, not a technical innovation. It doesn't cost anything to have an idea. And it's impossible to verify that you were the first person to have that idea. Technical innovations do cost money to develop and there really wasn't any unique technical pr
Re:This is a GOOD patent. (Score:2)
And if there was no prior art on it, and you wanted to patent it, YES, you should be able to patent it.
Should you be able to patend the idea of removing seeds from cotton? Mechanically removing seeds from cotton? No, of course not. But you CAN patent the method of using a cylinder with metal spikes w
Re:This is a GOOD patent. (Score:2)
Re:This is a GOOD patent. (Score:2)
Or maybe you have no comprehension of patents... (Score:2)
Jeff is *NOT* patenting something that regular shops have been doing for years. Giving someone the option of buying a used item from someone else instead of the new item you're selling, as part of an online ordering system, is *N
Re:Or maybe you have no comprehension of patents.. (Score:2)
Oop! The one-click patent was a patent on someone else's idea.
Yes, USPTO screws it up every now and again, but there is a system in place for redress.
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Who are you? Rip Van Winkle?
Giving someone the option of buying a used item from someone else instead of the new item you're selling, as part of an online ordering system, is *NEW*
No it's not. It used to be quit
Try again. (Score:2)
Re:Try again. (Score:2)
So? I've seen that too in shops run by charity organisations. Big deal. Is that supposed to be a defense?
Ah, well. Now that they've patented auto-completion I'm sure you'll just be orgasmic at the continuing rate of "innovation" at Amazon.
TWW
You're missing a KEY difference... (Score:2)
The whole genius with what Amazon does is they never don't possess the item or ship the item.
Nearly classical economics (Score:5, Interesting)
Bezos wants to make money and survive. And it's darned hard to run something like Amazon like a business. Now this should be obvious. But it brings back memories of my days as an economist (oh, the shame! the shame!)
They, like ebay, are working in as close to a frictionless economy as we are likely to get. If any facet of their business can be done more cheaply by someone else, they're screwed. We're even seeing one of the previously fictional economist's assumptions becoming true. The market setting prices immediately through the auction mechanism.
How does a firm survive in nearly classical economic conditions? It reduces costs at every point and provide barriers to entry to new firms, and damn the effect on every other part of the information industry. You also see it in the way that they provide "like goods" ("People who shopped for this also shopped for this") and pricing that varies from person to person for the same item based on their best guess as to what that person is willing to pay right now.
This is particularly true when they are competing with ebay which really doesn't have any pricing mechanism except for the pure market-driven auction one.
An interesting view on nearly classical economics
Why hard to run something like Amazon as business? (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't understand why it is difficult to run something like Amazon like a business. They are simply cutting out the distrubutor, who demands a share of profits, selling items for marginally(in most cases) cheaper than their competitors, and then charging the consumer for shipping.
It seems to me that as long as they can keep their costs below what a distrubutor would charge, they should be making money. Also, because they al
Re:Why hard to run something like Amazon as busine (Score:2)
There's no great technical expertise needed to buy things, or make a website, or sell/ship things.
The difficulty comes from "selling items for marginally(in most cases) cheaper than their competitors". Given how easy it is to recreate their own situation, there's no way to do this.
This leads to a situation where to keep a competative advantage, they need to use "non-classical" techniques, like patents, name recognition, brand loyalty and the such...
Re:Why hard to run something like Amazon as busine (Score:4, Insightful)
The same is true with amazon. We don't let walmart patent the "make a huge freaking store" method of business, why should we let amazon patent the "click to buy things" business?
Should we give walmart a patent if they want to start selling used books next to their new books? Then why should we give a patent to amazon when the only difference is the venue?
That's a good one! (Score:2)
There's no great technical expertise needed to buy things, or make a website, or sell/ship things.
Heh. That's funny.
True, one could buy the talent and over the course of time recreate the Amazon site featureset.
Takes you a while to get there, and a lot of capital and management expertise, and all the while you're competing with someone already there.
And, of course, you have to raise capital. Any Joe can do so taking a summer stroll down Sand Hill Road, right?
Re:Why hard to run something like Amazon as busine (Score:2)
You make it sound like almost no work was put into Amazon. That is clearly incorrect.
If creating a competitor to Amazon was so easy, why hasn't there actually been one? I highly doubt the success of Amazon had anything to do with their patents. One click really isnt what Amazon is known for.
Anyways, I think you're underestimating how difficult it is to run Amazon's business. Additionally Amazon actually carries inventory (evidenced by the single item detail pa
Re:Why hard to run something like Amazon as busine (Score:2)
Even if your database is accurate with the physical inventory count, there are other issues... like how much inventory to hold, when is it appropriate to sell inventory, etc, etc. Lots of analysis that needs to be done, its not extremely trivial.
Its called 'supply-chain software' or 'enterprise resource planning'. Lots of companies make a zillion dollars doing this software, including IBM.
Re:Nearly classical economics (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Nearly classical economics (Score:5, Interesting)
However, granting monopolies for business practices makes far less sense. Business plans typically do not involve huge R&D expendetures the way actual technological advances do. Instead, business plans are "gee whiz" ideas to run a business more efficiently, an end result which is ultimately more profitable for the business to implement regardless of having a monopoly on the practice or not.
If Amazon were not granted a patent for "One-Click," would they not use it? Of course not; the idea took very little investment to develop and makes their business far more profitable, regardless of its use by competitors. Patents are not necessary to inspire innovation when it comes to business practices; the necessary motive is the increased efficiency and profitability. Further, issuing a profit for a new business practice means that there can be no direct competition between Amazon and anyone else, since no one else can use Amazon's same sales methods. Therefore, there is no driving incentive for Amazon to increase their product value or profitability, and, indeed, fewer, not greater, incentive to innovate (the same problem which arises with more traditional trade monopolies).
It's difficult to show any likly benefit in innovation from business practice monopolies, but the cost is clear.
Re:Nearly classical economics (Score:2)
Re:Nearly classical economics (Score:2)
I disagree. You are assuming people will always buy the cheapest. However, Amazon still provides something of value even if they aren't the cheapest: low risk and top-notch customer service. Even though it is true that I can get certain things more cheaply at eBay, I still buy from Amazon and others to get a known face on t
Re:Nearly classical economics (Score:2)
Of course EBay has a pricing mechanism. There is a fixed cost to list an auction. You seem to be under the impression that EBay sells "stuff". They don't. They sell auction administration (and auction visibility). It is only in hosting other peoples selling of stuff that Amazon is competing with ebay, and in this arena both companies are providing
Re:Nearly classical economics (Score:2)
If there are no drug patents, nobody will spend billions to research new drugs. That I can understand. But if there are no one-click or new+used patents, nobody will offer one-click shopping, or sell new and used items? Of course they would. So granting patents on these things is harmful.
Is Amazon Profitable? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is Amazon Profitable? (Score:2)
Re:Is Amazon Profitable? (Score:2)
Discovery, not Invention (Score:4, Interesting)
-- Rick
It's a good idea but not a technology (Score:3, Interesting)
The technology that lets you find out what used books match new books is called a JOIN. The technology that lets you link from a new book page to a used book page is called a Hyperlink. The whole process is pretty much depend
Re:Discovery, not Invention (Score:2)
When they start letting you patent methods of doing business, you can patent anything. Anything. You could patent picking your nose. You could patent swinging on a swing set [uspto.gov]. What if Picasso patented cubism?
It may be a good idea, but it's not something that should be protected by the government against competition.
Hmmmm (Score:5, Interesting)
from an investor's letter [corporate-ir.net] released in April, 2003:
"Amazon.com's employee base grew from 158 to 614, and we significantly strengthened our management team."
So Bezo directed a third of his workforce to pursue just this one goal? Interesting.
Link goes to page 3 of article (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Link goes to page 3 of article (Score:1)
Amazon = Smart (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Amazon = Smart (Score:2, Funny)
Two points:
1. It would amaze you how many academic subjects there are these days that you can earn a doctorate in.
2. Not everbody has the skills needed to work the till at a McDonalds.
Re:Amazon = Smart (Score:2)
Re:Amazon = Smart (Score:2)
When I was doing my A-levels I used to do my best thinking whilst I was working on a till - it's fairly easy to do your math homework in your head and still have enough capacity left over to handle customers reasonably well.
Now I do my best thinking while I'm running, and my fastest running when I'm
Publishing depends on inefficiency (Score:5, Insightful)
"We suggested to members that it was in their own self-interest not to undermine their book sales by sending Web site visitors to Amazon," Aiken said. "Amazon is turning new book buyers into a used-book marketplace. That hurts profits of publishers and the royalties for authors."
I think the Author's Guild is absolutely correct in this case. Amazon claims that it's about giving customers options, or turning new readers on to authors. But studies have shown that price has almost no impact in getting readers to choose a new author. Other factors, such as book reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations, are much more influential. Readers do look for bargains, but only after they have decided which title they want.
The publishing industry depends on the systemic inefficiency of book distribution. Profit margins, as always, are razor thin. Fortunately, most books just gather dust on bookshelves once they've been read. Usually they just doesn't seem worth the trouble to sell. This is inefficient, because the unused book doesn't end up in the hands of another willing reader. But it's a boon to the publishing industry, because the willing reader will be tempted to buy new books (with much higher profit margins) instead.
Ironically, readers as a whole benefit when they are willing to fork out more cash for a book. It's important that publishers make profits or at least break even, because this allows them to take the financial risks publishing "niche" books for smaller markets or taking chances on new, aspiring authors. The alternative is to focus exclusively on mass-selling pulp, churning out whole forests' worth of best-sellers and "Left Behind"novels.
Re:Publishing depends on inefficiency (Score:2, Interesting)
Except the Authors Guild is run by carebears, not evil profit motivated people looking at a bottom line.
Because when the RIAA tries to shut down a P2P service or local used CD store, slashbots jump and scream about how they are dinosaurs and need to change their business model.
But the Authors Guild, being made out of candy and gumdrops, can just go ahead c
Re:Publishing depends on inefficiency (Score:2)
OLD publishing depends on inefficiency. (Score:3, Interesting)
If publishers won't make any money, they'll cease to exist, and authors will simply take advantage of new digital publishing techniques.
The argument that people will cease to write unless publishers can make a profit is no more valud than the argument that people will cease to make music if record companies cease to make a profit. People will always write, and people will always make music, and if they want to feed themselves without having to do anything e
Re:OLD publishing depends on inefficiency. (Score:3, Insightful)
The argument that people will cease to write unless publishers can make a profit is no more valid than the argument that people will cease to make music if record companies cease to make a profit. People will always write, and people will always make music, and if they want to feed themselves without having to do anything else, they'll find a way to get you to pay for their goods.
Actually, there's absolutely no guarantee that an effective means of communica
Check BookCrossing (Score:2)
BookCrossing is an easy way to clean off those old bookshelves without having to figure out where your local used book store is. It's more like donating books to the public domain.
=Shreak
This actually hurts niche markets *less* (Score:2)
fscking simple. (Score:2)
Prior Art (Score:1, Insightful)
Exhibit 1-1,000,000 All the stuff sold on usenet before http existed.
Exhibit 1,000,000-100,000,000 eBay
Re:Prior Art (Score:2)
The thing that bothers me about this is that the patent would not be on a piece of code but on the very practice
Computerization... (Score:1, Interesting)
There have also been price mistakes where people have gotten boxes of 20 modems for the price of one and other things.
I'm sure this is somewhat of a drop in the bucket, but all the computerization does
Patent-pending, eh? (Score:2, Funny)
Relevant documentation here [userfriendly.org] and here [userfriendly.org].
Better off at a yard sale. (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon takes a considerable amount of profit from you this way.
Re:Better off at a yard sale. (Score:3, Insightful)
I would rather buy a paper mark down where all the yard sales are. Spend a whole day driving to each one in hopes of finding the book I want.
Amazon not take, I give (Score:2, Interesting)
Amazon allows me to get my stuff in front of thousands of people across the country who are actually looking for that obscure CD I have for sale. In many cases I've doubled my money with the hard-to-find stuff, all by just doing a search and fillng in a form. I just drop it all in the mail bo
Re:Better off at a yard sale. (Score:2)
I admit if you live in the williwacks and don't want to drive to a better place, then you might as well take your chances.
no, you'd be worse off (Score:2)
Hmmm (Score:1)
Personal Experience & Shipping Charges (Score:1)
You linked to the wrong page. (Score:2, Informative)
I suggest that the correct way to link to an article like this is to link to page one and note that the relevant info is on page three. Here's the correct link [fortune.com].
E-Tail and me tail (Score:2, Insightful)
Given that e-commerce is doing as well as it has, can be viewed as suprising if you really look at the problems. Setting up good reliable e-commerce is not just web hosting. Who is minding the store?
It still takes human hands to manufacture, market and distribute goods. Automation is still not good enough.
E-commerce will not replace local retail in the near future for these
What a joke. (Score:5, Interesting)
I placed an order for four books last week. None were in stock at the local bookstore and I figured I'd just order from Amazon and have them delivered to my door. I picked the free delivery option which groups the books into as few shipments as possible. During the checkout procedure I was advised that I would be receiving two shipments. One with the three books that were currently in stock, a second with the book that is being released at the end of the month. Seemed perfect. Until I got my order confirmation email.
"Delivery estimate: February 18, 2004 - February 25, 2004"
Wha???? That's over 9 months from now. Do they have to grow the trees to make the paper? I figured it was a glitch and waited for my shipment notification. Didn't get anything. A few days later, my order status still hadn't changed so I inquired. I got four responses.
Response 1, CSR A: Sorry about that. Technical glitch. It's been fixed and your order has been upgraded to 2-day delivery at no charge.
Response 2, CSR B: "I've checked into your order and see that the shipping instruction to "group my items into as few shipments as possible" was selected during the order process. This option can extend the estimated ship date for your order beyond the individual item availability estimates which are listed on our web site."
Response 3, CSR A: Whoops. CSR B is right.
Response 4, CSR C: Looks like someone else already took care of this.
Odd. All three of the books that were supposed to be in the first shipment still show up as "ships in 24 hours" both in my order status page and the product description pages. I'll wait and see what happens.
Monday rolls around. I check the order status again. Oh, Goody! Two of the books have shipped. Funny. They shipped Sunday. That's a neat trick. And one of the books that was shipped is supposed to be out of stock. And one of the books that didn't ship is still listed as in stock and is supposed to be shipped today. Oh, well. At least something's on its way. Well, it will be this evening when the Sunday shipment is picked up.
Tuesday morning. Track the first package. Odd. It's still at "Billing Information Received". This is the UPS phrase for "They've told us they have a package but we don't have it in our hands yet." I check my amazon order status. Says the same thing but now I see that the other book that was supposed to ship monday has been bumped back. It's not going out until sometime between the 15th and the 20th.
So I placed the order a week ago and nothing's gone out. Half of my order is supposedly sitting on the loading dock. A quarter of the order is eluding the pickers.
Way to go, Amazon! From now on, I'm ordering my books through the mom-and-pop downtown. If I'm going to pay list price, I may as well support a local business even if I do have to get off my ass to go pick up the items.
Re:What a joke. (Score:2)
I've ordered from amazon nearly 50 times by now, and I have never encountered
paper backs (Score:2)
I also just like that big box full of books showing up. :) As for oddballs, Amazon got me into the world of graphic novels and magna. I can't even find those at local bookstores, and I'm just too damned old to walk into a comic store. :
Re:What a joke. (Score:3, Informative)
It's better to make two orders of $27 than one order of $54, the way things are set up right now for the free shipping.
HUGE FEES, but they get away with it (Score:5, Informative)
Simple choice, right? Well get this, ebay's fees [ebay.com] (in my case) are $0.93 plus 2.75%. Amazon charges [amazon.com] $0.99 plus 15%! I really hate paying huge fees when they're doing hardly any work, but the visibility is what they're selling.
Sell on ebay: $90 minus $3.40 fees = $86.60 NET PROFIT
Sell on amazon: $170 minus $26.49 fees = $143.51 NET PROFIT
Would you give up $56.91 purely to avoid supporting an "evil" company and their stupid patents? For most people, it's just not worth it. I hate his guts but Bezos is smart as hell.
Re:HUGE FEES, but they get away with it (Score:3, Insightful)
Sell on ebay: $90 minus $3.40 fees = $86.60 NET PROFIT
Sell on amazon: $170 minus $26.49 fees = $143.51 NET PROFIT
Advice to broke college student: show a little initiative, slacker. BUY the copy on eBAY and SELL it on Amazon. DUH. $143 - $90 = $53 = 59% profit margin.
Correction (Score:5, Informative)
No. If you read the Fortune article, or the patent itself, you will see that this is not the case.
The patent covers the specific feature of pre-orders, e.g., allowing buyers to set up requests for used products.
It does not cover the basic idea of selling used goods next to the new. This is hardly patentable, because it does not pass the basic criterium for being patentable - it is not new!
Tor
Re:Correction (Score:2)
[0013] To assist potential buyers in efficiently locating the marketplace listings for a particular product, each product detail page preferably displays or summarizes the existing marketplace listings for the corresponding product. These listings may be associated with a variety of different sellers (including individuals and small merchants), and may be for both new and used units of the product. Thus, by accessing the detail page for
Amazon also better at used-item refunds than eBay (Score:4, Informative)
Then I noticed Amazon's A-to-Z guarantee - All I had to do was provide details of what went wrong and they reversed the charge. It was much, much simpler and quicker than trying to go through Safe Harbor on eBay.
I still like eBay for a lot of stuff (after all, there are a lot of people there and I trust the rating system more...), but Amazon continues to really hold the crown customer service wise.
Bezos is selling Amazon shares (Score:5, Informative)
He sold 6 million [yahoo.com] shares this week. His salary is only about 80,000, but still, it doesn't look great. $6,000,000 is probably just chump change compared to his 2-3 billion bankroll of AMZN shares.
This is not an indication that the sky is falling (AMZN looks like it is ok going forward), and diversification is smart. Nevertheless, he is selling and not buying shares. That is worth something to know.
GF.
Major Prior Art (Score:4, Informative)
Barnes and Noble? (Score:3, Insightful)
It was a great article, but I wonder how all these sorts of companies compare. Of course considering the amount of money I've spent at both the past few years, I can't complain. Further most of the complaints I've had about buying online (not being able to read the book) have disappeared.
Given that they carry obscure books (I study a lot of philosophy) they really are a salvation. Once upon a time I could only get technical books when I made trips to places like Los Alamos, Berkeley, or the like. Now I have the entire library available - often with helpful discussions.
Business Hyperspace (Score:2)
Re:Strategy (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Strategy (Score:1)
Re:Amazon? They still owe me money!.... (Score:2)
Re:Bezos' genius (Score:2)
At least Amazon had and has a product, unlike a lot of dotcoms. It's still up to the investor to do due dilligence. I made some nice cash riding AMZN up because lots of investor *didn't* do theirs.
- was to create a web site where negative comments are systematically deleted hence convice everyone they're buying something great
Aw. Did they delete your "Ths book sux!" comment? Or your 19 page treatise on why Xenosaga was an infe