Amazon Has Just Registered to Sell Ocean Freight
flexport.com
flexport.com
Over the past year, I've noticed a HUGE uptick in the quantity of fake 5-star reviews. They are so blatant it's frightening, and they usually go unnoticed in Amazon's default "Most Helpful" sorting.
In particular, the Home Office Desk Chairs landscape is pretty insane: http://www.amazon.com/Home-Office-Desk-Chairs-Furniture/b?ie.... I was trying to find a chair back in September, and I was appalled by some of the reviews I was seeing. Top selling products, with several hundred reviews that averaged out to 4/4.5/5 stars.
This is a screenshot from back in September: http://imgur.com/qbCz0yE, and it only contains a small sample of the "Awesome, highly recommend" reviews spattered around. You'll notice this pattern on virtually every chair on Amazon, except the Aamazon basics chairs which wer launched sometime in late September / early October. Their reviews seem pretty good so far (i.e. real), but unfortunately for me I had purchased a chair from eBay before these launched.
These patterns are pretty frighteneing (especially considering a lot of people are actually buying these things), especially considering I've experienced the same issues when shopping for others things.
Has anyone else had an experience like this? Or am I losing it?
I haven't noticed the more organic type you are seeing, but it does not surprise me at all.
"This impartial review was delivered after I received the product free or for a discount"? Give me a break. Joe or Judy Amazon are realistically going to be perfectly happy plunking five stars down for free stuff.
If Amazon wanted to do it right, they'd set themselves up as a neutral intermediary, companies could register to get some amount of product in the review chain, then Amazon would randomly distribute it to relevant reviewers, and the resulting reviews would be posted anonymously (with a known pattern, e.g. 'TrialUser'). And drop any users from the program that consistently give five stars.
Instead, they seem to have created a star-for-stuff system.
Be that what it may for the market: I think they've been a lot less mercenary than they could be (they could likely jack fees a lot higher now without much fallout), but the potential is certainly there.
Great for low cost optimization, bad for great feature development.
PS: The whole only-being-able-to-price-sort-in-a-single-category is terrible too. How do I know if Thing X is in category Y or Z? It successfully reproduces all the fun of wondering what aisle the grocery store stuck trail mix on.
Unfortunately it does not always work accurately, but I think it gives a good estimation whether a product is legit.
Example for AmazonBasic: http://fakespot.com/product/amazonbasics-mid-back-mesh-chair
And for "Engineered Now": http://fakespot.com/product/headrest-for-herman-miller-aeron...
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fakespot-analyze-f...
Actually in a way what whacks me out the most is people's expectation for an "open" marketplace with high average quality.
If Amazon came alone with insane, draconian policies and made it a very closed market, I'd be ok with that as a consumer so long as I can find what I need.
That sounds like Monoprice or Newegg. Slightly more focused for our needs, but not as fast search results or affordable shipping.
But after getting burned a few times with products that did not live up to the standards presented in bogus reviews or product rankings, now I only use Amazon for the fast shipping. Instead of spending the majority of my time on Amazon doing the research there, I'm spending it on blog posts, reddit, or YouTube looking at real testimonials and going to Amazon only when my shopping is already done. Those extraneous checkout-line addons are no more.
In this way, Amazon definitely does itself a disservice by (seemingly) shifting their priorities away from what they used to excel at to more "big picture" ideas.
I'm only one customer, but clearly I'm not the only one with a growing frustration, and this case (since that's the only one I can attest to) they're losing real money, and I would cause that a disservice.
"minimum quality standard"
Pick one.
It wasn't so bad when the only items sold by third parties were obscure and niche products that Amazon didn't carry. It was actually a good indicator that I might be better off going directly to a site dedicated to bike parts or camera equipment or outdoor equipment or whatever.
But now it seems like every time I search for anything I have to filter out a dozen third party or "sponsored" items that I'm not interested in. If I wanted to be uncertain of what I was getting, have a questionable return policy, and get crappy non-Prime shipping, I wouldn't have went to Amazon in the first place.
Current major issues are:
1. Sellers can name themselves as they like. For example, you can be a seller with a name of very recognized brand deceiving people that you are official source.
2. Sellers either omit information or publish incorrect one. For example, you can sell toys laden with lead and it would be just fine.
3. Amazon has been amazingly unsuccessful leveraging their own data. For example, they can ask simple question "Are you happy with X that you bought last week?" with just Yes/No and use that information to flag products for reviews. Getting rid of incorrect and incomplete listings can not be optional.
4. Listings are not properly conflated which makes people very confused and forces them to spend lots of time to find the "best" one. For example, there are probably dozen listings for exact same product like Syma 107G helies.
If the common complaint is something that I can't overlook than I look at other products.
I still have a stack of paperwork from them back when I was considering shipping some items by container from Japan.
https://www.flexport.com/learn/not-based-u-s-importing-forei...
Amazon getting into international freight logistics is big news.
I'm sure I'm missing the greater significance.
Most likely this is just more of them trying to own more of the vertical which probably translates into cost savings.
If Amazon is serious about being an ocean carrier, they would be the first major new competitor to enter this space since before the invention of the internet. All the competition is still mired in 80s technology.
But the technology issue aside, my point was really that Amazon has a more aggressive growth strategy and "become a monopoly" mentality than any incumbent player in this field and would be willing to take a loss in order to take market share. I believe they also have a small army of operations science PhDs who understand logistics network optimization better than anyone else in the field, and they also invest heavily in automation and robotics. They have self-driving forklifts as well as automated systems that feed instructions into the earpieces of their warehouse workers now. If they apply this strategy toward freight forwarding, that industry is going to be shaken up in a big way.
Whats wrong with it, in this case? Even if maintenance costs go up, its still cheaper to maintain than to build a new system, especially if the old system fulfills all the requirements and is proven.
When these companies want to get their business off of a legacy system, they essentially have three practical choices: 1. SAP 2. Oracle 3. A bespoke system coded in Java or .NET.
Modern customers want real-time data and analysis. They want all of their information available on the web, mobile, sms, email, API. They want a modern technology experience.
A DOS program consuming data via EDI and Excel-based input is a good candidate for the worst technology to do these types of things.
I think most customer just want to know when their stuff is going to arrive - they don't need 'real-time data and analysis' (or if they do, they don't expect the guy moving the cargo to provide it for them).
Also, those DOS\cobol systems already made shipping so cheap you can get a 40 foot container (full of stuff) from China to LA for $1300.
They can't scale? They currently handle the whole world's shipping needs. That sounds like it scaled just fine.
You wouldn't, but freight forwarders typically don't move bulk cargo, they move containerized cargo. Bulk means the entire vessel hull is loaded with one raw materials commodity, like grains or minerals.
Companies importing finished goods absolutely do want instant, automated status updates on where their goods are at, because that information helps them load-balance their supply chain to keep their warehouses and stores stocked at the right levels and evaluate the performance of their contracted manufacturers and logistics service providers. Supply chain managers absolutely want scorecards and dashboards and push status updates.
[1] E.g https://kontainers.com I'm not affiliated, but they did do the same accelerator as my startup.
Lots of big companies run such things in-house less efficiently just to keep their outsourcers on their toes.
Last month it was Air Cargo
http://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon/amazon-in-talks-...
They very well could be disruptive, but I also see this as a rising-tides scenario. There are plenty of companies that wish to facilitate international commerce without using Amazon. Amazon could raise the bar, making opportunities for smart startups to build solutions that will mimic Amazon capabilities for non-amazon customers.
I'm working on the compliance aspect of international commerce, specifically classification of commodities, and estimating duty and other international taxes. My dream is to allow any merchant the ability to easily have international customers without having to worry about cross border regulations.
Amazon getting in this space feels like momentum for updating a proven, but old model of doing commerce.
Even Apple gave dividends, from 87-95 and 2012-now.
[1] https://d28wbuch0jlv7v.cloudfront.net/images/infografik/norm...
Growth: We have 100 outstanding shares of $1, so we're worth $100, we made a "profit" of $5 which we immediately invest in ourselves such that we're now worth $105. Each shareholder is $0.05 better off.
Dividends: We have 100 outstanding shares of $1, so we're worth $100, we made a profit (no quotes) of $5 which we pay out in dividends. Each shareholder is $0.05 better off. We also issue five new shares of $1 and invest the revenue in growth, the company is now worth $105.
The former model gives Amazon more freedom by isolating them from the whims of stock market (it's hard/expensive to raise money in a down market), and is probably more efficient because there are fewer transactions involved, but requires investment opportunities for the $5. Apple, famously, does not have these opportunities, so the best they can do (indeed, what they're supposed to do -- if investors want to invest in cash, they'll go to the treasury bond market) is to remit the cash to shareholders, through dividends and buy backs.
They already have pilot boats, where a licensed captain navigates from a staging area off shore into the port of call. Actually a reasonably standard thing in shipping.
They are now the level 3/cogent + verizon + netflix of commerce. I dont even think walmart had this level of rollup.
Just from the title I had guessed that that they would own ships as a hedge against rises in freight costs, just as airlines buy oil stocks etc.
Is anyone aware of any analysis of Amazon's recent moves in aircraft, drones, and so on as hedge vs integration vs disruption?
So it makes sense.
Amazon needs move product to make money. If others will not physically move that product to the US, then they'll have to do it. More expensive is better than none at all.
It's like looking at a parking lot and concluding no cars are on the freeway.
amazon was changing up it's rules with shipping from china a few months ago, now I can see why they did it.
It's unlikely that an importer or exporter is going to use Amazon for the freight forwarding outside its network. I guess Amazon only will end up handling shipments of its own or network sellers who significantly rely on amazon to sell their products, likely through LCL Consol box, putting a lot of smaller shipments into a single 40HC container., that's going to save them a lot of cost as well as give them tighter control over the shipment routing and transit time etc.
Other regular importers & exporters either in China or USA are never going to use it. Because of the reason mentioned above.,
An importer or exporter shares too much sensitive and critical information with his freight and customs agent., If I suddenly get involved in trading or in other words become their competitor its obvious no one is going to share the information with me.
I have seen other companies where this is done--a particular business unit or subsidiary is prohibited from disclosing its sensitive customer data to its parent company because of the conflict of interest it would create.
Amazon is serious about internal controls so I don't doubt they could pull this off as well if they want to.
I see no reason this would be any different.
These are all very healthy competitors, it's just that they are all operating on a massive scale.
Unless we plan on equipping civilian vessels with nuclear reactors or somehow make storing gigantic hydrogen fuel cells safe the situation isn't going to change much.
"The fuel used in ships is waste oil, basically what is left over after the crude oil refining process. It is the same as asphalt and is so thick that when cold it can be walked upon . It's the cheapest and most polluting fuel available and the world's 90,000 ships chew through an astonishing 7.29 million barrels of it each day, or more than 84% of all exported oil production from Saudi Arabia, the worlds largest oil exporter." [1]
[1] http://www.gizmag.com/shipping-pollution/11526/ [2] http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/apr/09/shipping-...
Amazon obviously have too much cash lying around.
So be good and stop using Amazon!