And if you turn to your left, you can see the walls of Amazon Web Services' vast server farm. And next to it, a gift shop and visitor center We used to joke Amazon is a cloud server giant with a gift shop in the parking lot. Well, we shall joke no more: two out of every three dollars the Jeff Bezos empire banked worldwide, over the final three months of 2019, came from Amazon Web Services. That shouldn't be too surprising, though, as it is the market leader, and …
Not my bloody house they haven't!
The poorly paid monkies that supposedly deliver for Amazon just return to sender rather than stop to look for my easy to find house on a country road. Same for my five neighbours, Amazon delivery and customer service is only interested in easy to find urban clients but they still sell to those who live a little out of the way and then don't deliver to them.
I have watched the delivery van drive past at 90KPH several times in a day on occasion.
Who cares? I even stopped my Prime subscription when Amazon increased the price. I can wait a few days for whatever I order on Amazon.
Moreover, try to work as one of those deliverymen (because they are always men - no gender issues here?) - they are strictly controlled by the Amazon app on their phones, and have too many deliveries to make in the allotted time - so I'm not surprise if some of them start to cheat saying some deliveries couldn't be made, or throw the boxes into your garden.
Faster deliveries are really a first world problem, and usually tackled exploiting second/third world drivers...
I detest the way that Amazon shove Prime down your throat every time you buy the slightest thing from them, They give you a price which looks competitive, but they don't say that you only get it delivered free if you sign up to Prime, and they then force you into complicated gymnastics to get it delivered (at a price) without the Prime subscription (£7.99 per month). I have no need of a Prime membership as I don't watch streaming video and I don't usually need to have stuff delivered next day. I recently bought some hand sanitizers, which cost approximately £16. I then had to go into a separate page, cancel the Prime membership, and fork out £8 for delivery, but instead of them being delivered, I was presented with a bill for £12 for Customs Duty. Thus, they actually cost me £36, not the advertised £16. I later found exactly the same product on eBay for about £20, plus the fact that I could choose the exact flavour I wanted, instead of Amazon sending me a random assortment. Amazon is a good market place sometimes, but "it do pay to shop around". On the subject of rural deliveries, I have several times in the past received text and email notifications that my parcel has been delivered, when in fact it has not. On one occasion I phoned to find out where said parcel was, to be told that it had been left in my porch (which I don't have) at a certain time (when I was in the house, sitting at a window overlooking my drive) and had been delivered from their Newton Abbot depot. As I live in North Wales, I find it hard to believe that they would undertake a 500 mile round trip just for a small parcel. I would seem that they have my details mixed up with someone who lives in Cornwall.
I worked out many years ago - in the days before Prime - that buying from Amazon Marketplace Sellers was a bit of a mixed bag. Since then, I avoid them. I will consider buying "supplied by x, fulfiled by Amazon", but other than that will go out of my way to make sure I'm buying direct from Amazon rather than a third-party.
Occasionally you find a third party that's ok, and then you realise that some of them actually have their own web shops, and it's often quicker, easier and cheaper to buy direct.
As for address mix ups, it's not just Amazon, it's any delivery that relies on somebody with a postcode and a GPS unit. One day we will just accept that pizza or Indian or Chinese delivery, because it's all paid for online and it is becoming tedious to keep redirecting the delivery driver - the house in the next street (which doesn't actually have the same postcode but does have a very similar street name) seem to average about one takeaway a week, at least a half of which come to us instead of them.
M.
With all the. Belly-aching about Amazon in the media, political circles.... no-one mentions AWS at all. It all about Amazon Prime, shopping and The Grand Tour.
Shame... as it has broken the grip of Microsoft, Google, IBM, HPe, SalesForce, Oracle. All well known for paying the minimum legal tax too.
I think you'll find virtually every company and individual pays the minimum legal tax, too. They might weave complicated knots in order to frustrate the tax collectors, but it's governments that write tax laws and they are ultimately to blame for the situation. Of course, corporate lobbying of those governments, and the often dodgy tax affairs of governments' members, both help to maintain the status quo.
Yet many can't exploit the same loopholes because it needs money and expertise beyond their reach.,and don't have the money for the barrage fire in courts megacorp can unleash to reach an agreement that it's still advantageous for them - just look at Facebook and the face recognition suit.
Sure, laws should be equal for everybody - but actually they are not.
I don't think Amazon is that different in terms of workers rights and low - they are just as guilty as the others.
I do see Amazon as different in terms of strategy and tax avoidance and they are my pick for becoming the monopoly mega-corp that we see in science fiction. They still do not pay any dividend and all their money is pumped into development and new services. Some will work out, others will not. If you don't make a profit, then you won't be taxed.
If you compare that to Apple, Microsoft or Oracle, who all seem to be sitting on large piles of offshore profit which they are afraid to bring home as it will be taxed. They appear to have very short term strategies - while amazon is playing the long game.
Amazon's long game of razor thing, tax-reducing margins spread across the entire economy generates huge amounts of money and corporate value without leaving much exposed surface for governments or competitors to get much of a grip on them. The huge and hidden benefits aren't just the taxes or huge revenues to work with, but what those tiny margins do to all their competitors. To fight them as a retailer or streaming service or a grocer or a cloud computing vendor you need to survive on just as little profit, and it's really not possible for most companies to do for any extended period of time. So I agree that the dystopic corporation that everyone has been talking about for the past fifty years is going to turn out to be Amazon.
I'm looking forward to the day Amazon decide to have physical stores
Not quite the same breadth of stock, but my opinion of Argos has improved in recent years. They are often price-competitive with Amazon and other similar online-only stores, delivery can be same-day sometimes and if you want to go to a shop there are now hundreds to choose from. I have half a dozen within easy striking distance of home which means that if I need something immediately and it's not in my nearest store, it's often in one just a little further away.
M.
It will costs them much more than drivers hired by subcontractors.... moreover it would make for them much more difficult not to pay taxes locally. They are using automatic pick-up points, though, usually places where there are other shops... shops that usually pay taxes for being there, unlike Amazon.
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