Amazon's FMA is so massive here. And given their insane customer-obsessive focus that manifests itself in price, convenience, selection, innovation, etc...well, all I can say is "good luck" to the challenger(s). The company basically reads The Innovator's Dilemma on an ongoing basis and keeps strategizing on avoiding a traditional fate. I would not be surprised to see them create a useful version of ST:TNG's replicator within the next 50 years.
In a future society, local Walmart stores will be the local distribution partner of Amazon.
Oh sure, you might not see that in our lifetime, but think about it, each company is lacking in what the other possesses...
Amazon has every product under the sun, but those products must be shipped to people.
Walmart has less products in its local stores, but those products in those local stores are the most popular ones, and those stores are usually a short drive away, just a hop, skip and a jump -- away from the houses of most Americans.
It would make sense, for a future society, having the resources to do so, to consolidate these two ideas, these two infrastructures, into one...
While at it, why not put regional post offices and other delivery service hubs near the local Walmarts?
Oh sure, we can't do this in this day and age because separate corporations are the owners of those resources, and because there would be a whole bunch of government red tape and legal considerations, and that's if someone had the money to do it, etc., etc.
But, a future society -- could consolidate all of that infrastructure...
Make it clean, make it neat (architectural buildings) and consolidate these functions into the center of future pre-planned cities built around them...
Competition will fall to the last mile. The last mile means so much, probably will require some implementation from the competition. The real competition is challenging and making it cheap for amazon to rely on them so they can rise the price. I say that because majority of Amazon's fulfilment is fraudulent in either or actual delivery.
Lasership is the Smaug's missing scale for Amazon. They FAIL and FRAUD on every single shipment they have made to my apartment. When I see something is being shipped by them I by default do a return.
The competition will need to be able to affirm that every single shipment is made without widespread fraudulence.
Amazon is so bad for the environment. Half the items I return they just stick the return label right on the product box. I am pretty sure that is going back to the bin for recycling or wholesale
With local stores, I can go pick up, see the product, and when I return it goes to the shelf for someone else to use
What amazon needs is some sort of regulation blocking AWS revenues from fuelling the e-commerce business. Without that, other e-commerce players will never have a level playing field
Why isn't there an Amazon but with local fulfillment? Local merchants can flag that they're selling certain items on said marketplace, but to users they're transparently browsing a single cohesive marketplace a la Amazon.
I think that a fully localized Amazon would keep much of the convenience that customers love, but would remove the capitalist bottleneck in Seattle.
One of the major reasons I order from Amazon is ease of returns. I don’t want to have to go to 5 different stores to return a shipment or have 5 different return policies to think about.
Google seems to be trying to do this with Google Shopping. Search is excellent but it's really not that easy to browse, still haven't bought anything because I can't seem to figure out how to checkout with store pickup on it, and it doesn't have all stores nearby, only select chains like walmart, target, advance auto parts etc.
So yeah, sloppy execution, in typical google fashion.
bookshop.org sort of does that, but their prices can be much higher than Amazon's. To the point where you'd actually save money by buying the book on Amazon and just giving your local book store owner a check for $5
Sounds like a variation of the Starbucks problem. Starbucks is very cheap, the expensive sugary drinks would be even more expensive at any other coffee shop and their cheap coffee is typically cheaper than the competition by at least a few cents too. So if you're not a consumer with very particular tastes there's no real incentive to get coffee elsewhere when not only is Starbucks going to be cheaper but it's also everywhere and thus probably more convenient for your as well.
