Amazon incoming ...
 

Just in time for Christmas, Amazon Australia is due to soft launch Thursday, with the full publicity machine on Friday. Time will tell how price competitive they will be, but the US Amazon has been making more available from there to Australia, so if you are looking for keen pricing on Christmas presents.

It'll also be interesting to see how long before Auspost falls over ...

Re: Amazon incoming ...
 

Excellent. Looking forward to Gerry Harvey getting handed his arse...


S

Re: Amazon incoming ...
 

Have been waiting for this.
A lot of local rip off merchants are about to play in the real world.

Last night I randomly put "usb flash drive" into the search bar and items are already being listed in the background albeit as unavailable.

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If Amazon takes off like it has done in the US, Auspost will get a significant cash injection. Here, across the US, and now even in small towns and rural areas, the USPS makes Sunday deliveries, exclusively of parcels from Amazon because of the delivery deal that Amazon struck with the USPS.

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Sunday deliveries? We don't even get Saturday deliveries here in Aus - you know - the really useful day when people aren't at work...


S

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Including, apparently, the post men. :rofl:

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JB Hifi announce same day and three hour delivery

https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/1...-day-delivery/

Having just checked it, it's not working at all (typical online competence) but does at least show they have been shaken up a bit.

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As much as Gerry Harvey deserves a good kicking, I reckon he just might step up with an alternative. He has to otherwise he is dead meat.

Fancy a GoPro Workshop?

https://www.applianceretailer.com.au/2017/09/harvey-norman-unveil-new-flagship-concept-store/#.WhUuYJ87ZnE

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Not really. If I were the type of person to want to buy a GoPro I'd also be the kind of person to research them on Youtube - kinda obviously.

Plus, of course, I wouldn't pay $700 for the latest model from Gerry.

Issue is, like it or not, it's all about cost saving and range. Amazon has a lower cost base, and a wider range. Gerry will, by default, end up with lower sales, but with the same fixed costs.

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Lucky for Gerry the world is not like Garry.



According to Mr Mortimer, speed is the new currency.

https://finance.nine.com.au/2017/11/22/12/49/what-amazons-launch-spells-for-australian-retail

Now that Harvey Norman and Bing Lee are price matching online retailers already, Amazon will need another trick up their sleeve.

Gerry might be a loud mouth, but he is a fighter, and he does learn and adapt.

It shall be an interesting battle.

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It'll definitely be interesting if the outcome is anything different from what is happening in the US.

Large American retailers think they can "learn and adapt", but Amazon has been eating their lunch for years, and therefore retail locations have been closing at the rate of thousands per year (currently retail locations are closing at a faster rate than they were in "the grate recession of 2008-2010) as traditional retailers try to reduce their cost base to maintain their profitability, because at the moment, as GarryP said, they have a cost base that Amazon doesn't have.

Retailer share prices are being crushed, and it is hard to imagine how a number of major retailers in the electronics, and clothing/department store sectors can survive.

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The ones who have adapted and are offering that point of difference.

Already evident in the US where the big malls are surviving and growing and the smaller malls in smaller towns are dying.

The big malls have deep pockets and know how to create the in mall experience. The small malls don't.

Then again the small malls were getting crushed by the big malls before Amazon arrived anyway. This is just the nail in the coffin.

And its all about Malls.

By the way, those retailers who cut costs to survive never did survive. The retail sector now realises this approach was wrong, and eliminated many people who fulfilled a sales, marketing, distribution, location based role. These are the people who generate business. Thankfully the error is being rectified by the survivors.

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Not really, big malls fail too. And the churn and vacancy rate in malls is rising rapidly too.

For the retailers, even more scary than the decline in customers and sales is that the finance is drying up too, like a game of pass the parcel, banks and investors appear to think that putting new money into declining business isn't going to end well.

For example Sears has been in a death spiral for more than a decade, and is only afloat today because of progressive sales of brands, assets, and real estate because the banks won't lend.

Another example is the high- end, publicly quoted but family controlled department store Nordstrom. Management, i.e. the family that controls it, thought they could overcome issues by buying it back off the NYSE, but then discovered that the banks and other investment funds wouldn't lend the money to buy the company off the stock exchange. Now Nordstrom may also have entered a death spiral of it's own, with no obvious way to reverse the trend.

And it's not just me spouting from the comfort of the sofa at Pulaski Manor - take a read of this article as an example of the many reports on the imploding retail sector in the US. That article was published in April, but there has hardly been a week since then without a retailer announcing the closure many or all locations, going out of business, or bankruptcy.

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Well you better tell Amazon that. They have bricks and mortar stores popping up all over the place.

I believe your message is bricks and mortar stores are dead. Really? Why would Amazon jump on board if that was really the case?

And why are Amazon doing this? The answer might be surprising, but in the end, retailers who have seen success with bricks and mortar stores separate themselves from the e-commerce competition is through one factor: people.

The power of human interaction, and providing a great customer-service oriented, knowledgeable associate, who can educate a customer on their products. They know that an in-person experience is not something you can get when visiting Amazon online.

I am not hear to argue a black and white case for bricks and mortar retailers. Everyone knows a traditional model is a dead man walking model. But a shift in the traditional yields results - the evidence is already in and Amazon is following.

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What Amazon has bought is a niche chain of groceries, effectively giving it a network of distribution points for retail food distribution.

For not much more than they paid for Whole Foods they could have bought one of America's largest groceries (Kroger), and more than a couple of thousand large supermarkets, but they didn't, they bought a small niche grocer and paid little more than a rounding error on the Amazon corporation balance sheet for it, which is hardly an overwhelming vote of confidence in brick and mortar retail. And that really isn't "popping up all over the place". ..... I hear they opened a bookshop too, and "may open more"! :rofl:

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Groceries to books to ........ where will it end?

Opening a bookshop in today's world does seem to go against the grain. Maybe its the power of the people that makes it worth while.

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It sounds like you might not be familiar with the complete history of Amazon, what their original on-line niche was. :unsure:

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You think incorrectly. Whats your point?

By the way, these book stores are selling more than books. .....

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Interestingly Walmart who have kept their online pricing the same as in store are now starting to charge more for online for items certain because the cost of shipping is making it unprofitable.

Consumer has a choice, pay for shipping and wait or pay for petrol and get the product ASAP.

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American book stores are like that, but I will assume that you're aware of that too. :rolleyes:

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That's not actually true. I went to buy a TV a couple of years ago, looking at Amazon, as well as Best Buy (a leading US retailer of home electronics and appliances), and at Walmart.

Walmart had what I wanted at a competitive price, and I could choose "pick up from store", so getting it pretty much immediately. I paid on-line and trundled off to the local Walmart to collect my purchase, .... where I found that the TV I had bought was marked up at $50 more than I had just paid!

Good job Walmart - screw the poor customers who buy in-store, and sell at a discount to the on-line middle classes! :rofl:

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So Americans don't have book stores then? They have stores that stock books among other items. :rolleyes:

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Did I talk about a couple of years ago? I think I specifically stated "have started".

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I was only pointing out that they "have started" at least two years ago.

You also stated that on-line purchases would cost more than in store purchases, yet historically I noticed that the opposite was true, which I thought was interesting and worth noting. Maybe you don't agree. :unsure:

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Tradionally online is cheaper but pricing change makes sense though. If you already have the bricks and mortar locations, then distribution to these places in bulk is a lot more cost effective than distribution to the consumers front door.

And on top of that, once you get the consumer in the front door then the in store experience can go to work.

Amazon knows this which is why they are growing bricks and mortar.

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No, US book stores, at least the surviving chain ones*, have diversified into many loosely related areas, commonly including a coffee shop, and selling records, CDs, and DVDs, children's toys, jigsaws, gift stationery, and hardware for viewing ebooks.

* Smaller, privately owned book stores are usually "just a book store".

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So its not an American thing then. Or it "was" and has caught on elsewhere.

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Worth noting that Amazon aren't going back to bricks and mortar - they are experimenting with models that plug that 'local' hole in their business model in innovative ways.

For instance, the grocery store that you just walk in, pick up the groceries and walk out (explicitly getting away from than human element beoz). They picked up Whole Foods because of their brand, and the possible margins. The bookstores are mainly at colleges, so a very particular stock set. And then we have the drones...

Pull it together and you can kind of see at the target they are aiming at. Local distribution centres capable of using drones to complete the delivery, accept returns, and act as a brand focus - all with the minimum of people involved and with their online system as core.

Their obvious next assault is on the groceries shop - and this is them gearing up and understanding how they can beat the likes of Coles at their own game.

And all being developed off the cash that would otherwise go to the government in taxes.

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Hurry up Amazon Australia ! I have hopes down here.

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I'm just waiting to see if they turn on Alexa in Australia properly so I don't have to persuade it I'm in the UK.

And having a chuckle over how many aussie financial 'experts' are tying themselves in knots to try and justify "Australia is special, we are different, our retail is world class".

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Back? When were they ever in "bricks and mortar"? This is new.

They aren't experimenting, they are making money out of it. $1.3B revenue so far with this "experiment" and growing.

So they now have a presence in lots of areas physically, branded around groceries and books. ...... and expanding

The slowest growing area for Amazon is its online shopping. Growth in its cloud service, subscription services, and physical shopping far outstrips its traditional business.

It's interesting, while traditional physical retailers are expanding their digital services, traditional digital retailers are doing the same. They all understand there is a need and a market to bring the physical and digital together.

Even Starbucks are on board.

https://www.geekwire.com/2016/meet-s...kevin-johnson/

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There are at least a couple of orders of magnitude difference - Amazon has bought a chain that perhaps represents probably one store for every 2-3 million people in each state, but the move to on-line retail is closing hundreds of retail locations in every state ever year!

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So what?

That only effects people if its driving unemployment. Now that may be the case in a town where there were 2 main employers. The steel factory and the mall. But its not the case across thr board.

In fact e-commerce has created far more jobs than it has destroyed.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2017/04/03/how-e-commerce-is-raising-pay-and-creating-jobs-around-the-country/#1e5bf4276dff

Happy to continue on the conversation about automation and jobs but there is a thread for that. We run the risk of being accused of destroying a thread with left and right wing banter.

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Latest union viewpoint attachment. It's worth a read, and only available to members as a hard copy. Hence the photo.

The real problem is going to be wages and conditions, thing is you cannot get reliable people to deliver for Amazon at the current courier rates, which are at least 30 more like 40 pct lower than Aus Post pays it's salaried workforce. If they go down the contract path, Amazon will end up with a bad name. If they try and use the core Aus Post workers it will cost them a fortune. Plus the core workforce is already stretched to the limit, working regular 10 to 12 hours a day and now being asked to work 6 days a week.

Amazons real problem will come down to reliable Labour availability. It just isn't there.

As for Sunday Delivery for Amazon specific..... Union says no ;) Triple time could help move that opinion though.

Ask Coles on line, how their wine deliveries are going since they switched from Aus Post to Toll ;)

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Everyone knows Amazon's receipt for success is speed. (Some will peddle cost). Either way they are going to have a tough time with both, and with the retail market now understanding in store experience, click and collect can make product cheaper and quicker for the end consumer, coupled with the issues of unions, vast distances/small population, etc its not going to be easy.

Though Amazon is no mug organisation and have been around for a looooong time with lots of tried and tested markets. No doubt they would have studied the Australian market hard and for a long time.

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Your analysis is incomplete and your understanding is poor, so not surprisingly, your conclusion is probably wrong.

:getcoat:

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Get coat. Well put up are better argument then. Its easy to shut anyone down who believes its all about saving money, rather than making money.

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Why is Amazon a success?

Well there are lots of commentator viewpoints. Maybe it is because they are willing to experiment (eg with Bricks and Mortar stores, whether you like it or not).

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/w...7-10?r=US&IR=T

Maybe it's because their core ecosystem is online, and they look to bolster their ecosystem to keep people in the bubble.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnsh.../#6fbffc61385a

Maybe it's cost cutting and profit reinvestment, rather than dividends.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/amaz...re-profit.html

Or maybe it's because Amazon are ruthless and cold hearted, particularly with human staff and brand pretensions.

Amazon Is More Ruthless Than Walmart: Here's Why | Time

You want to push some other reason? Citation needed.

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Still no launch. Now talk it will be next week before they finally open the doors. Maybe they found issues with their test soft launch yesterday?

If they don't get their finger out, they are going to become a joke ....

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They are already a joke in local logistics, for thinking/boasting they can offer quick delivery at this time of year.

Fancy launching in December, the busiest time of year, when everyone is already overloaded. If Salaried staff are working 12 hours a day 6 days a week how many hours and days week do you think contractors and their non english speaking family/friends or student subcontractors are working @ 80 cents per parcel or less?

I reckon they've been hit with a massive last-minute dose of reality. Even Post got that wrong, thinking their 1 billion dollar investment would cause mass staff savings. Much to my personal chagrin, I may add.