Hacker News Reader

Comment by xutopia | Hacker News Reader

Is anyone concerned with Amazon taking over too many things? It's already killing smaller shops... I understand why but it's now trying to take over content and all forms of shipping? I'm worried we'll have a single mega store one day from which we buy all our things.

View on HN

Amazon is growing quickly, and entering more markets..

but there's no reason to be alarmed. Amazon really isn't as big as they look. Revenue last year: $107B

Compare that to other things: About 1/5th of Walmart. 2/3rds of CVS. 10% less than Costco. 1/3rd more than Target. 15% more than Home Depot. Sure they're #1 in ecommerce, but ecommerce is only 16% of retail sales in the US.

There are actually quite a few companies the size of Amazon. And many of those companies are actually more profitable than Amazon too.

Units from third party (3P) sellers made up 49% of total units in Q2 2016, and Amazon only reports their commission as revenue for 3P sales rather than the total gross merchandise volume (GMV). A better comparison point is thus GMV, which was estimated at $225B for 2015[1], compared to $482B for Walmart.

[1] http://www.channeladvisor.com/blog/?pn=scot/deep-dive-into-a...

Millenials and those younger than them prefer eCommerce. Combine that with increasingly better service, and the trend of it increasing will continue. There's a reason Walmart bought jet.com. eCommerce is important, and they sucked at it.

And Walmart will still suck at eCommerce, even after buying jet.com. That purchase was a blunder.

> It's already killing smaller shops

Nothing new. Blockbuster killed small video rentals, Barnes and Noble killed small bookstores, Walgreens/CVS killed small drug stores, and WalMart killed a number of store types.

And then Netflix killed Blockbuster and Amazon killed Barnes and Noble (well almost)... So the cycle continues! Just when you think nothing can uproot a company, something more innovative/convenient comes along.

No, I don't have any qualms with this. I just want quality stuff at the cheapest prices. Smaller shops will serve niches that Amazon doesn't.

"Smaller shops will serve niches that Amazon doesn't."

To be honest, my experience is rather the other way around... I expect Amazon to have the stuff my local shops don't.

If I'm going to a brick and mortar store it's generally out of desperation and quick need, knowing I'll be forced to buy low quality crap for bad prices.

Walgreens or Walmart, yes. But there are plenty of tiny shops around town that have handmade stuff or quality merchandise that you can't get on Amazon. I know I wouldn't buy a solid-wood antique furniture set from Amazon, for example.

He's not talking about small brick-and-mortar shops, he's talking about small web shops. There's tons of specialty web shops that have stuff you won't find on Amazon (or worse, as I found recently with the Litter-Robot litter box I was looking at, it's available on Amazon for 3x as much as it costs from the manufacturer, because the Amazon seller is a scammer that just buys the item and ships to your address and pockets the difference).

"Quality stuff at the cheapest prices" is how we got into this corporate-oligarchy mess in the first place...

You expect consumers to pick crappier stuff, at higher prices and more inconvenience?

Or that the companies who provide better/faster/cheaper not to grow large on providing what the people want at the prices they want to pay?

> I just want quality stuff at the cheapest prices.

Which Amazon has been spammed by chinese dropshippers.

> cheapest prices

Not always. Depends what you're looking for.

Yeah, and it's really annoying when you're looking for certain items that have many generics.

Item for item, I find eBay buy it now prices at least 10 percent cheaper.

Most of the places where Amazon is painting over still requires people to make cool stuff and let people buy cool stuff for their web storefront, EC2 and other enterprises. They have a vested interest in the economy itself working well, and most of the things they are participating in are in race-to-the-bottom sort of scenarios.

I find that smaller unique shops still have a huge edge, it's just the medium to large shops that are losing. I still would rather a world with lots of small people making good money selling unique goods via post/internet then a huge segment of the population just punching the clock at minimum wage.

Buy n Large is here!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com