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Somewhere out there is a cashiered Sears mid-level executive who probably grouses to anyone who will listen about how his company lacked vision.
If you think about it, Sears had literally all the pieces in place to be what Amazon is becoming today. An established mail order mechanism, a brand name, vendor and supplier relationships, national reach, an enormous distribution channel, and retail operations.
It was too sluggish to respond to WalMart, but it actually could have matched up well with Amazon had it not been such a dinosaur.
All Sears had to do twenty-five years ago was set up an online ordering presence and flog it relentlessly. Or, even better, buy Amazon wholesale. Woulda shoulda coulda. Sears' decline will be taught in B schools from now until the end of time.
Into the 1990's Sears was the largest catalog retailer. Should have seen the demise of Service Merchandise, then Montgomery Ward. IMHO too much time spent on the old General Catalog 2x a year. Another thing they could have done was offer discounts from the catalog price.
Makes you wonder if Amazon pays enough to USPS to cover the final delivery to the door. Some adjustment needs to be made. May help the states some to pay sales tax on these & Ebay items.
Into the 1990's Sears was the largest catalog retailer. Should have seen the demise of Service Merchandise, then Montgomery Ward. IMHO too much time spent on the old General Catalog 2x a year. Another thing they could have done was offer discounts from the catalog price.
Makes you wonder if Amazon pays enough to USPS to cover the final delivery to the door. Some adjustment needs to be made. May help the states some to pay sales tax on these & Ebay items.
The official USPS position is to crow about all the revenue Amazon from the service get. Letter carriers on the other hand point out that carrying Amazon causes everything else to back up and the true cost is hidden by everything going out under 1.5 times and 2.0 times normal pay rates because normal time was expended on Amazon on Sunday's and going out late to deliver an Amazon piece because it has a barcode. But postal management has dreams of being an exclusive carrier for Amazon, thus extra steps taken for them not taken for anyone else except express mail customers. Thus Amazon is helping in their too big to be let go of business survival model.
I think it's fairer to say that AWS is the most profitable division on a % basis, but retail generates more revenue. Amazon has over 50 data center facilities in just three counties of NoVa, where land zoned for data centers is running $1.5-$2M per acre. In 2020 Microsoft paid $90M for 66 acres.
Quantum Loophole (real name apparently) just paid $100M for data center land in Frederick, Md, but they got 2,100 acres for the $10M more than MS that they paid.
I was speaking strictly on income. in 2020 - AWS accounted for over 60% of Amazon's profits. Now, I guess some may be more interested in how much more the retail side sold... but that also shows how small the margins are...
Of course, none of this is static. So things can change from quarter to quarter or year to year.
Amazon reported earnings off by 25%+/- on flat sales and forecasts more trouble this qtr.
Same for Apple who have now been overtaken by MS as the world's most valuable.
I was going to start a thread about how much UPS, Fedex, and DHL must have suffered when Amzn decided to get its own delivery trucks.
Maybe Uber/Lyft will get in on parcel delivery too. Afterall, they can do food pickup/delivery. How much harder can it be to go to a warehouse and then to someone's porch?
I was going to start a thread about how much UPS, Fedex, and DHL must have suffered when Amzn decided to get its own delivery trucks.
Maybe Uber/Lyft will get in on parcel delivery too. Afterall, they can do food pickup/delivery. How much harder can it be to go to a warehouse and then to someone's porch?
Don't see it happening. It's much more efficient from a unit cost perspective to fill a van with 100+ parcels and have someone do nothing else all day. Can't put 100+ in an Uber.
It's also more profitable to deliver people.
Restaurants and their ghost kitchens are generally located much closer to office buildings than distribution hubs.
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As a lifelong participant / owner / employee in transportation services I would love to see the operational numbers on Amazon Logistics. We know they are very tough on sub-contractors and have driven many broke.
If Amazon can jump the gap to be successful, in light of the current industry headwinds (Fuel costs, Labor shortage especially with CDL, Carbon Credits, additional rules, and more legal weed (Drivers cannot pass CDL random tests...)...). We'll see how Amazon fares. From the employees I know at Amazon, I don't expect a miracle (ie.e sustained cost reductions / logisitics profitable).
Remember... there are some real experienced pros at USA logisitics. Amazon should have a wealth of studies to learn from.
Walmart and USA grocery distributing is tops in the world for USA type of geography and demographics. .
Amazon is not delivering packages profitably period. To compare them to DHL/FDX/UPS is utter nonsense as a business operations. They make money elsewhere which is entirely fine but in the delivery business it’s purely a loss leader until they can make money on it
As a lifelong participant / owner / employee in transportation services I would love to see the operational numbers on Amazon Logistics. We know they are very tough on sub-contractors and have driven many broke.
If Amazon can jump the gap to be successful, in light of the current industry headwinds (Fuel costs, Labor shortage especially with CDL, Carbon Credits, additional rules, and more legal weed (Drivers cannot pass CDL random tests...)...). We'll see how Amazon fares. From the employees I know at Amazon, I don't expect a miracle (ie.e sustained cost reductions / logisitics profitable).
Remember... there are some real experienced pros at USA logisitics. Amazon should have a wealth of studies to learn from.
Walmart and USA grocery distributing is tops in the world for USA type of geography and demographics. .
Can you splain a little more about which specific Key Performance Indicators you'd like to see?
Amazon, a part-owner of Rivian, has agreed to buy 100,000 of their trucks. I guess they'll make them available to contractors at favorable rates, then change the terms of the contracts so that anyone who doesn't migrate to Rivian will be penalized.
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