General Request to pretty much everybody (or so it seems).

[Jstpssng]

All that you need to do is look at independent newspaper delivery people to see how subs will be treated.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I know a guy that does that. My God, what slavery!

I delivered thousands of flyers as a kid. They never paid me! Just thinking about it. The little guy got shafted back then, and as the little guy now, Iam getting shafted more and more by Government, Big Business and Technology.

 

[daugen]

great thread, some thoughts with my normal wordiness, sorry.

Main Street businesses in non touristy towns and cities are either going to be local bodegas or I think they won't make it. Dollar stores will prevail, the lowest common denominator. What I'm curious about is how will these tariffs affect the competitiveness of the dollar stores, and are there
major changes in the wind? I owned a Main Street retail business for five years. And sold my electronic business before Circuit City came to town. Not sure I would have survived. And now where is Circuit City?...

On Amazon in the question area usually one of the first questions is where is the product made.

It's troubling to hear about how Amazon perpetuates a kind of lower menial class, one step above the fast food joints.
Use robots, and use humans only where needed. They probably treat their robots better. But maybe that's just the new
order in shipping and warehousing companies.

Troubling because I think we vote at the ballot box, we vote with our wallet and we vote with our feet.
If you don't like it, move. No whining. If you genuinely can't improve your lot, because some bad person or company
is holding you down, in perhaps inhumane working conditions, then you have a right to squawk and be heard.

There is a reason they call diamonds "blood diamonds". Where things come from can be very bad news.
Places I don't want to support. I'm not a fully green investor but I do have socially responsible investments in part.
And what really drives this all home to me is while I never buy stock, because I've been a Amazon member since 2001,
I had faith in the viability of the company. It really worked well for me, and I figured driving to stores was going to be a
thing of the past until public transportation improved. So I bought a good sized chunk of Amazon stock at $650.
Like hitting the lottery, on a very small scale. Helped me buy two used tractors. Amazon stock is now in the high 1900's meaning
my investment tripled. What is not to like about that?

But I'm wondering if now is the time to sell it all.

I live in rural farmland outside a small Southern city. The one department store in town is a joke. Home Depot left, not enough business in town for more than just Lowes. And Lowes is expensive and the staff is never there to help you. You spend half your time there hunting and searching, often for help, on those hard concrete floors that are really bad news on my arthritis. So...I click with my mouse, or do I walk those concrete floors? The appeal is clear.

The worst blow to our community was the closing of the only Ace Hardware store, run by lovely people for years, who set the absolute highest
standard of retail service. You were met at the door, you were walked to the aisle and had your choices pointed to you, you were greeted with a smile and you left hearing a thank you. I was impressed by these folks, and saddened when they finally retired, and no one would buy their business, which was almost being given away. No one wanted to start a new hardware store. Why? Could it be Amazon?

Amazon is a business success story. But ends don't always justify means. We have to be careful with the way these companies conduct themselves. Because we can vote with our wallet and our feet.
I never trusted Ebay, always seemed like the wild west, Amazon seemed a safer place to shop.
But now there are lots of exclusions and take backs, things they used to guarantee and support
are no longer and bum merchants get in there. I try to look for the ones marked standard Prime.

And yesterday a box showed up, from Walmart of all places, for some Scott industrial paper towels I ordered,
from Amazon. Walmart is distributing through Amazon.
What a world.

Googling the product will often find other alternative sites. But not like Google doesn't have its issues too...

 

[Jstpssng]

I only wish that mail order companies could figure out that some of us have PO Boxes; yet it shouldn't require us to fill in all of the information twice. Oftentimes I don't even know if an item will be shipped via UPS or USPS; or maybe FedEx, who at some point will dump it into the US postal system. I've started putting both PO Box and street address in the same line and being a real p***23d about it; if they can't figure out how to get it to me then I'll cancel the order.

So far I have never had an order cancelled.

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

Amazon is a business success story. But ends don't always justify means. We have to be careful with the way these companies conduct themselves. Because we can vote with our wallet and our feet.
I never trusted Ebay, always seemed like the wild west, Amazon seemed a safer place to shop.
But now there are lots of exclusions and take backs, things they used to guarantee and support
are no longer and bum merchants get in there. I try to look for the ones marked standard Prime.

Prime and Fulfilled by Amazon are just two more ways Amazon is squeezing small sellers. Sell on Amazon and they take a huge cut of each sale. Go Prime and they take another cut. Go Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) and they take another cut plus warehousing charges, etc. And they are systematically and gradually forcing all sellers to do all of this. This reduces sellers to the role of simply shipping their products to Amazon warehouses, and Amazon does everything else and takes all the profits. Because of the extremely slim profit margin left for any seller doing the Prime FBA thing, guess who can most easily afford to do this? Yep, Chinese sellers are slowly taking over Amazon. Just like Walmart, it is becoming a marketplace for China. Not saying that's good or bad.

And btw, there is no such thing as free shipping. However this is another way Amazon can kill other online retailers; their huge volume means they have insanely low "negotiated rates" with UPS, USPS, FedEx, etc. So they beat everyone else on shipping costs too.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^^
You left out that they are getting consumers to pay for that accelerated shipping. Those of us who refuse to pay are pushed to the bottom of the list... or go elsewhere. :thumbsup:

 

[reb]

I only wish that mail order companies could figure out that some of us have PO Boxes; yet it shouldn't require us to fill in all of the information twice. Oftentimes I don't even know if an item will be shipped via UPS or USPS; or maybe FedEx, who at some point will dump it into the US postal system. I've started putting both PO Box and street address in the same line and being a real p***23d about it; if they can't figure out how to get it to me then I'll cancel the order.

So far I have never had an order cancelled.

Mail here is not delivered to our doors; PO boxes are the rule. I used to put down the PO box as my address, but sometimes the seller would reply that he cannot deliver to a PO Box. Then I would have to start over with my street address. Using the street address along with the PO Box would trigger the software that rejects PO Box delivery. If I started with the street address and it was delivered via US Mail, the bureaucrat in charge of our post office would raise a fuss, even though she knows everyone here and can put things in the appropriate box with only the name available. She finally agreed that I could use my street address, followed by #[box no.]. Now things get delivered without the extra hassle.

 

[QRTRHRS]

Mail here is not delivered to our doors; PO boxes are the rule. I used to put down the PO box as my address, but sometimes the seller would reply that he cannot deliver to a PO Box. Then I would have to start over with my street address. Using the street address along with the PO Box would trigger the software that rejects PO Box delivery. If I started with the street address and it was delivered via US Mail, the bureaucrat in charge of our post office would raise a fuss, even though she knows everyone here and can put things in the appropriate box with only the name available. She finally agreed that I could use my street address, followed by #[box no.]. Now things get delivered without the extra hassle.

LOL! Not at your pain mind you but I have an address that most on line software will not confirm. My post office knows where I am as does UPS but Fedex is another story. My neighbor and I are luckily good friends as we exchange wrong deliveries regularly. I even have a mailbox with my name and address at the beginning of my easement road. My question is does Fedex go through that many drivers or do they rotate them?

 

[Jstpssng]

I know all to well what you're saying; I'm just tired of going through the rigamorole and think that it's about time mail order companies started accommodating us. Otherwise I will spend my money elsewhere.
I got denied a credit card from my bank because the post office doesn't recognize my road... hence the PO Boxes. I had over 25K on deposit there... I wasn't long moving it to my CU.

 

[Mauser12]

when the "little guy" can deliver a product to my home in two days at the same price as Amazon I will switch.

 

[dmccarty]

...
The worst blow to our community was the closing of the only Ace Hardware store, run by lovely people for years, who set the absolute highest
standard of retail service...

We used to have a family run hardware store in town. There was also a Sears franchise store that sold Craftsman tools and appliances. Then the Lowes opened up. :shocked: The guy that owned the Sear franchise locked up the store and walked away shortly after Lowes opened. The hardware store used to sell fuel and I think that was a big part of their business. However, the Fire Marshall said their installation was not up to code and shut down the fuel business until they were in compliance. They could not afford to bring the fuel installation into compliance so that part of the business was done. Then Lowes opened up and they were done. They rented out their hardware store and opened a different business in town which is blossoming. The hardware store had been in business for many years and run by multiple generations. Sad to see the hardware store go but the family is doing well.

In another town there used to be a farm coop that was started in the late 1800's. Loved going to the store because it was as much a history museum as a store but they were not near us and did not sell much of what we needed. One of the founding families had bought the store from the coop decades ago and it was run by a family member who was up there in age. I think she ran that store far longer than she should have just because she did not want it to close after all of these years. The store was downtown and downtown has been dying for decades after a major road was put through on the outskirts of town. The store was closed recently.

Businesses, like all living things, are born, have a middle age, and then die. As has happened to A&P, TG&Y, Marshall's, Blockbuster's, and soon to Sears/Kmart. Amazon will die as well. Tis really ironically funny to me that Sears, a business that was a mail order company and one of the largest companies in the world, is being partly killed off by Amazon, another mail order company.

Later,
Dan

 

[Diggin It]

Tis really ironically funny to me that Sears, a business that was a mail order company and one of the largest companies in the world, is being partly killed off by

I've seen speculation that Sears is being intentionally killed off from within the upper echelon.

 

[/pine]

Sears is now a penny stock

 

[buckeyefarmer]

We used to have a family run hardware store in town. There was also a Sears franchise store that sold Craftsman tools and appliances. Then the Lowes opened up. :shocked: The guy that owned the Sear franchise locked up the store and walked away shortly after Lowes opened. The hardware store used to sell fuel and I think that was a big part of their business. However, the Fire Marshall said their installation was not up to code and shut down the fuel business until they were in compliance. They could not afford to bring the fuel installation into compliance so that part of the business was done. Then Lowes opened up and they were done. They rented out their hardware store and opened a different business in town which is blossoming. The hardware store had been in business for many years and run by multiple generations. Sad to see the hardware store go but the family is doing well.

In another town there used to be a farm coop that was started in the late 1800's. Loved going to the store because it was as much a history museum as a store but they were not near us and did not sell much of what we needed. One of the founding families had bought the store from the coop decades ago and it was run by a family member who was up there in age. I think she ran that store far longer than she should have just because she did not want it to close after all of these years. The store was downtown and downtown has been dying for decades after a major road was put through on the outskirts of town. The store was closed recently.

Businesses, like all living things, are born, have a middle age, and then die. As has happened to A&P, TG&Y, Marshall's, Blockbuster's, and soon to Sears/Kmart. Amazon will die as well. Tis really ironically funny to me that Sears, a business that was a mail order company and one of the largest companies in the world, is being partly killed off by Amazon, another mail order company.

Later,
Dan

This is happening all over. Sometimes we look back, and think it has always been like that, but it wasnt. Things have always changed with the times. When my dad was young, he rode to town with a horse and buggy. There was a livery stable, large feed mill, oil well supply stores, a train station and a railroad. That all went away before my time, except i have a little memory of the feed mill. In my time a chevy dealer , A&P, and sears came and went. several small grocery stores closed.

Times change, and you have to go with the flow.

 

[daugen]

Prime and Fulfilled by Amazon are just two more ways Amazon is squeezing small sellers. Sell on Amazon and they take a huge cut of each sale. Go Prime and they take another cut. Go Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) and they take another cut plus warehousing charges, etc. And they are systematically and gradually forcing all sellers to do all of this. This reduces sellers to the role of simply shipping their products to Amazon warehouses, and Amazon does everything else and takes all the profits. Because of the extremely slim profit margin left for any seller doing the Prime FBA thing, guess who can most easily afford to do this? Yep, Chinese sellers are slowly taking over Amazon. Just like Walmart, it is becoming a marketplace for China. Not saying that's good or bad.

And btw, there is no such thing as free shipping. However this is another way Amazon can kill other online retailers; their huge volume means they have insanely low "negotiated rates" with UPS, USPS, FedEx, etc. So they beat everyone else on shipping costs too.

I agree with you totally. Close friends have a coffee business and by the time they pay 20 percent to Amazon plus plus they said they can only make a few bucks on shipping. 20 percent is a seriously high commission to pay a seller of huge quantities. They could easily afford to do it for 10 percent.
I mean how much money does Bezos want?
all of it?

 

[Diggin It]

I mean how much money does Bezos want?
all of it?

Yes.

Hence the thread.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^
He's not alone though.
I will spend more money on Amazon when;
I have overheated my snowsled, almost seizing the motor; and they send someone out to help me, then refuse to take any money.
I have an electrical, mechanical, or carpentry question; and their representative takes the time to answer my questions.
There is a real person on the phone when I call with a question before taking my order.
They don't charge me $99, to tell their vendor to put me at the front of the line in front of all of the other paying customers.

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

Businesses, like all living things, are born, have a middle age, and then die. As has happened to A&P, TG&Y, Marshall's, Blockbuster's, and soon to Sears/Kmart. Amazon will die as well. Tis really ironically funny to me that Sears, a business that was a mail order company and one of the largest companies in the world, is being partly killed off by Amazon, another mail order company.

Later,
Dan

Yup. In business you have to constantly change, innovate, adjust. And part of the problem is, as you get larger, those thing become harder. I run a lean, mean little business. We enjoy facing each new challenge (and it is brutal out there). So far, for 11 years, we have had phenomenal growth!

IMO Sears' big mistake was when they looked at Walmart and K-mart killin' it selling cheap Chinese junk, and decided: "Hey, let's drop what everyone has loved about us for over a hundred years--made in America and lifetime money-back guarantee--and just sell cheap Chinese junk too! And of course the clueless old farts sitting at the conference table who made that decision will retire with their golden parachutes regardless....

Agree 100% that Amazon may be at it's peak now, but will inevitably face their own challenges. Have noticed a definite decline in quality in the last 6 months. Orders sloppily and inaccurately packed, for one.

 

[HillStreet]

Sears is now a penny stock

I miss Sears, you know the way it was. People cared, the merchandise was good. I got my very first credit card from a Sears store in Michigan’s UP. I think the limit was $200 and my wife and I bought an area rug for about $20. That got us our start.