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Comment by PorterDuff | Hacker News Reader

Smart dudes have wrestled over those problems for years. I think the strongest case for dropshipping would be new cars. The dealerships have presented a problem for people for years, but they are politically well connected.

It's a lot easier for a manufacturer to send a boxcar of toilet paper to a warehouse (Amazon or otherwise) than to mail the case to you. Lacking Amazon or Safeway, they'd probably just recreate a similar system in the form of a co-op.

In any case, I don't doubt they've gamed and spreadsheeted the bejeepers out of dropshipping, returnable containers, standardized containers, third party (USPS) vs. self shipping vs. drones, etc.

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> Smart dudes have wrestled over those problems for years. I think the strongest case for dropshipping would be new cars. The dealerships have presented a problem for people for years, but they are politically well connected.

I've been studying this lately, and it really seems to be more than that. Consumers love to compare goods based upon initial purchase price (or even loan payment price) with relatively little regard for the long-term cost of that good.

As evidence, take a look through AutoNation's annual report, in which they clearly make more gross profit on part sales & service, finance, and extended warranties than on actual car sales. It is to the point that it is questionable if the business would be viable only on the basis of new & used car sales alone.

A business that chooses to try to make profit without these addons will ultimately have to sell more expensive cars. Will consumers understand the difference?

This generalizes: most individuals can't or won't think past the first order effects of any decision. Marketers know this and prey on it accordingly.

Interesting, and could be 'fixed' by the trend of leasing cars, where you pay a fixed fee for maintenance and use of cars.

My impression is that Amazon is kind of biased in that regard. There are valid reasons to keep the warehouse logistics in-house. And they did invest a lot of energy into that. It just bugs me that Dropshopping was never really pushed while the logistical powers to be ever so slightly pushed against it.

Nothing wrong with that, but it could very well be the first clue that Amazon is behaving more like an incumbent than a disrupter as described in the Innovator's Dilemma.

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