Amazon: We cut prices to scare ourselves into innovation Amazon Web Services' campaign of price cuts and rapid product development is part of a customer-first strategy designed to prevent stagnation, the company's chief executive has said. In the e-retailer's annual report released on Thursday, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos told investors that Amazon's customer-centric strategy should …
Taking this at face value, it is nice to see a company that has figured out that being proactive to offer a good product at a good price is the best way to generate revenue.
To many companies tend to only add functionality when clients clamor for it (and most of the time what the client is clamoring for is something silly that they don't really need) or decide that if their sales guys repeat how innovative they are enough times, they will be.
"...it is nice to see a company that has figured out that being proactive to offer a good product at a good price is the best way to generate revenue."
This is how Amazon came to be what it is today, an overreaching monster. In the late 90's they openly stated they were taking loses to "forward thinking" (remember that buzz term?). However, everyone knew it was to kill off the competition, and that is exactly what they did. Remember "Buy 1 get 1 50% off" on all books? Remember how quickly that vanished after the competition became all but extinct?
Amazon doesn't out service or out perform much of its competition, they just have the money to take losses while waiting for the competition to bleed out. Their business model is very similar to the hyena, and just as graceful.
Uh, no, their service is also well known for being excellent. People shop with Amazon not just because they're the cheapest, but because their range is vast, they have a good system to support small suppliers, their service is good.
The fact it's often the cheapest place to head is delicious icing.
I imagine no one is surprised to hear that Jeff Bezos was squiring Emma Watson, aka Hermione Granger, all over Seattle a number of weeks ago. But what isn't known is that pair spent several days at Amazon's West Coast Distribution Center.
Bezos hired Hermione to teach the muggles working for him how to use the spell that flies blenders and microwaves off the shelves, and through the air to the shipping department where mailing labels are affixed.
Word is it was a mess, looked like an 7 point earthquake, broken blenders jars and bent flat screen tvs everywhere.
Witchcraft is one innovation Amazon doesn't have to worry about.
I can't say I've been overly impressed with Amazon in any of its guises. Delivery is generally OK with occasional cock-ups and everything else seems much the same as everywhere else I shop on-line. Amazon did let me down on returns once too but then so have others.
Cloud services don't seem much better than elsewhere either. In then end I found it cheaper to do a bit of co-location, it saved me money and boosted performance.
What Amazon is very good at is not paying the same taxes as their competition.
"Wage erosion and the dehumanization of "human resources""
At some point the goods have to be handled by meatsacks, but absolutely essential to Amazon's price and service advantages is systems and automation. So (for the size of the company) nothing in the way of call centres or "customer services", and for the most part that gets me a better buying experience.
Now, tell me why Amazon should pay more than minimum wage for unskilled jobs? Most of us on this forum are better paid than average because we're lucky enough to be smart, we've put the effort in to earn academic qualifications, learned relevant technical skills,and we're willing to work hard in complex situations. Amazon's picking and packing staff are free to take other better paid jobs if they want, or to reskill if they want more money.
If you want to support higher wages, then you find yourself a supplier who pays their staff more, rather than expecting me to subsidise your lefty "social conscience".
Well yes.
But I guess you can factor in things liike in the UK we then subsidise these companies with tax credits due to low pay, and the fact they can hire and fire by the day with temps means they have a nice flexible workforce that they don't have to commit to (labour laws etc), which we keep on tap by benefits in between and having to provide an infrastructure that processes benefits at each change.
Oh and at some point you could be in that position, you know that they came for the Jews etc.
Well we let them erode the lowest workers rights and if we stand by and don't care? Then one day in a depressed economy, you could be looking at your skill set and get asked for a massive amount of IT skills, or hell just need a job anywhere, and find yourself being paid a pittance for all the effort that it took to learn it, I mean I know there are no jobs out there like that at the moment and everyone in IT is gainfully employed....
Unfortunately yes I do use Amazon, and things like supermarkets over my local butchers etc. Because I don't have enough spare cash to subsidies the difference can't help think we are shafting ourselves long term though.
It IS great for Seattle, as Amazon's massive growth in its north-of-downtown lakeside location is really helping to fill the economic void left by the self-destruction of Washington Mutual bank a few years ago. Meanwhile, the only signs of Microsoft on Seattle's streets are the little green-and-white private WiFi-equipped shuttle buses carrying Microsofties back and forth to the Redmond mothership 15 miles away.
Beer, because Seattle's got excellent microbreweries, too!
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