RE: Is Amazon Too Big? Monopolies and the Price of Convenience.
I had heard about the murder investigation and don't know who prevailed (Amazon or Law Enforcement) in terms of releasing the data.
What I'm most confused about is the apparent lack of concern people seem to have regarding their privacy. Do they think that it's entirely OK for a corporation to be able to listen in on every aspect of their lives, (i.e. what they say, where they shop, what they buy) as long as it's not a government doing the snooping?
I also read an article recently saying that the government is looking at Amazon as a potential anti-trust target.
My experience with them over the last 4 or 5 years selling items is that their fees, when you consider the deeply discounted shipping costs to get my products to Amazon's distribution centers & the logistical support they provide are competitive.
Amazon also deals with the myriad of different US State sales taxes for me (each US state has it's own version of something comparable to VAT).
Jeff Bezos may very well be the John Rockefeller of the 21st Century but I'm not in a position to pass judgement on the evil/righteousness ratio on either of them.
Seems most people don't care.
I have heard the opposite from other sellers. I think it may vary geographically - my own personal experience is that it is actually quite expensive and cuts significantly into what you make. Further for if you use Amazon fulfillment you have to pay them for storage too.
Some of these opinions may be coming from people who don't have a lot of experience actually running a profitable business on a day to day basis. There's a world of difference between selling something on Ebay as a hobby and actually having a business.
I can make a much better hamburger for less money than what I can buy one for at McDonald's. That doesn't mean I can run a profitable international business that employs tens of thousands of people.
I can't speak for the rest of the world but I can get some pretty good deals on restaurant equipment here in Murica buying it from failed restaurants. Being able to cook isn't a guarantee of success.
And I minimize the Amazon storage fees by monitoring my inventory and only shipping adequate quantities when they're needed. I have made mistakes and ended up paying long term storage fees, but I learned from my mistakes before it ruined me.
And, with that said, I'm selling out the inventory that I've got at Amazon and closing up. It's the competition who can buy in huge quantities at a much lower price that's taken the profit out of it for me.
Good points. Thanks for sharing your insight. I suppose the massive warehouses in the Far-East can outprice most other sellers.
That's where a lot of products are coming from anyway. alibaba does a good job of making them available but the cost differential between ordering 100 pieces of something compared to 1,000 requires a huge capital investment upfront in order to get competitive pricing.
It makes it almost impossible to start small and build something up.
That's the beauty of Steemit.
Your work reading, commenting, curation and posting is the sweat equity that can actually build into something.