Why Amazon Has No Profits (And Why It Works) It seems pretty likely that these businesses, selling very different products bought with different bargaining positions to different people with different shipping costs, have different margin potential.
This still doesn’t really give an accurate picture, though. Amazon is in fact organized not just in these segments, but in dozens and dozens of separate teams, each with their own internal P&L and a high degree of autonomy. So, say, shoes in Germany, electronics in France or makeup in the USA are all different teams. Each of these businesses, incidentally, sets its own prices.
Meanwhile, all of these businesses are at different stages of maturity. Amazon is a bundle. The clearest expression of this is Prime, in which (amongst other things) entertainment content is included at a high fixed cost to Amazon (buying the rights) but no marginal cost beyond bandwidth, as a way to enhance the appeal of being a Prime ‘member'.
And then there are the third party sales. 'Being homeless is better than working for Amazon' I am homeless.
My worst days now are better than my best days working at Amazon. According to Amazon’s metrics, I was one of their most productive order pickers – I was a machine, and my pace would accelerate throughout the course of a shift. What they didn’t know was that I stayed fast because if I slowed down for even a minute, I’d collapse from boredom and exhaustion. During peak season, I trained incoming temps regularly. When that was over, I’d be an ordinary order picker once again, toiling in some remote corner of the warehouse, alone for 10 hours, with my every move being monitored by management on a computer screen.
Superb performance did not guarantee job security. I have never felt more alone than when I was working there. At some point, I lost all fear. I cashed in on my excellent credit, took out cards, and used them to pay rent and buy food because it would be six months before I could receive my first unemployment compensation check. Amazon. For current political commentary, see the daily political notes.
RMS' Bio | The GNU Project If you want to order a book (or something else), don't buy it from Amazon. Amazon harms its customers, as well as workers, the national treasury, and many others that it affects. If you want to order a book, order it directly from the publisher or through a local book store. If you want to use a URL to refer to a book, please don't use an Amazon page. Here's a good (though long) overview of why Amazon's overall activity is harmful to society overall. Here are specific reasons — plenty of them. Sabotaging Customers Amazon appears to have cooperated with the US government to intercept a Thinkpad keyboard purchased by a Tor developer.
Restricting and Shafting Customers. Local Bookstores Ask Customers To Boycott Amazon Over New Price Check App Offer. Should people boycott Amazon?
Increasing numbers of retailers and publishers have been daring to ask the question, in the face of aggressive tactics by the book industry leader. Although Amazon offers an unmatched selection of books and other products via its website, some of the Seattle-based company's recent moves, such as its book lending program and its sales tax policy, have led many retailers, publishers and politicians to turn against it. But would enough customers change their spending habits in order to force a shift in the company's behavior? Earlier this year, a movement in California called on customers to boycott Amazon over the online store's attempts to avoid paying internet sales tax in the state. Now an offer related to the company's new Price Check app for smartphones is causing further dissatisfaction with Amazon's aggressive policies.
Though this offer does not apply to books, many local booksellers still feel threatened. Some E-Books Are More Equal Than Others. EDITOR’S NOTE | 8:41 p.m.
The Times published an article explaining that the Orwell books were unauthorized editions that Amazon removed from its Kindle store. However, Amazon said it would not automatically remove purchased copies of Kindle books if a similar situation arose in the future. This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned.
My week as an Amazon insider. The first item I see in Amazon's Swansea warehouse is a package of dog nappies.
The second is a massive pink plastic dildo. The warehouse is 800,000 square feet, or, in what is Amazon's standard unit of measurement, the size of 11 football pitches (its Dunfermline warehouse, the UK's largest, is 14 football pitches). It is a quarter of a mile from end to end. There is space, it turns out, for an awful lot of crap. But then there are more than 100m items on its UK website: if you can possibly imagine it, Amazon sells it. On my second day, the manager tells us that we alone have picked and packed 155,000 items in the past 24 hours.