[wapz]

> you'll have normal merchandise commingled on shelves side-by-side with third party supplied garbage

I don't think this is fair or even reasonable to say. It's going to be in a B&M store. You can inspect the item. The FDA/whatever organization will be inspecting food on the shelves. As for reputation, Amazon has the best customer service (tied with companies like REI) in my opinion.

I mostly agree that I don't see any positives for the customers at this point, but I don't think it's going the way of 3rd party counterfeit goods.

[PhantomGremlin]

As for reputation, Amazon has the best customer service (tied with companies like REI) in my opinion.

Sorry, I very very strongly disagree. I buy very little from them any more because I don't trust the provenance.

The saying is that a fish rots from the head down. Bezos and Amazon have proven time and time again that they don't really give a fuck about quality. Their one and only goal for the last 23 years has been to increase revenue, no matter the cost.

Here's this gem: Amazon's Chinese counterfeit problem is getting worse[1]. Here's some choice quotes from that article that illustrate exactly what I'm saying:

Always a problem, the counterfeiting issue has exploded this year, sellers say, following Amazon's effort to openly court Chinese manufacturers, weaving them intimately into the company's expansive logistics operation.

To unsuspecting consumers, fake products can appear legitimate because of the Fulfillment by Amazon program, which lets manufacturers send their goods to Amazon's fulfillment centers and hand over a bigger commission, gaining the stamp of approval that comes with an FBA tag.

Furthermore, Amazon's commingled inventory option bundles together products from different sellers, meaning that a counterfeit jacket could be sent to an Amazon facility by one merchant and actually sold by another.

It's almost inevitable that the Amazon corporate culture that has allowed crap like that to get worse and worse over the years will eventually take over Whole Foods.

[1] http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/08/amazons-chinese-counterfeit-p...

[wapz]

Why are you tying customer service to quality of goods? If you don't like their quality of goods that is a fine reason to not buy from them, but I don't see anything in your argument disputing their customer service (the only part you quoted). If you receive a counterfeit item from Amazon (in my experience), they will 100% refund you the money instantly with almost no questions asked. They have also been refunding nexus 5x phones that die out of warranty (bootloop problem).

> Their one and only goal for the last 23 years has been to increase revenue, no matter the cost.

How can that be remotely true? Amazon has spent millions on R&D for the future, not for the current.

[PhantomGremlin]

What I quoted from you began with "As for reputation". Amazon's reputation cannot be reduced to only customer service, which is what you are highlighting. It's a straw man you have created.

A company can have a good reputation for customer service, while having a bad reputation for other things.

In your example, the way Amazon achieves their customer service reputation is reactionary. If you catch them selling you crap, then they will replace it or refund your money. It's a fool's errand to allow them to play that game with you.

The logical endgame to that business approach is the melamine poisoning in China about a decade ago. "Oops, sorry we sold you milk and infant formula adulterated with melamine. Sorry it killed your child. Here's your instant 100% refund with almost no questions asked".

As for revenue, once again you're creating a straw man. Of course R&D is "for the future" and "not for the current". That's the literal definition. I said revenue, not R&D.

As for my comment about "no matter the cost", let me try to restate it in more detail, perhaps I didn't phrase it well:

Since its inception, Amazon's number one goal has been to grow revenue, from year to year, as quickly as possible. That's their #1 business goal. They have optimized for that revenue goal over other business goals. Revenue over profit. Revenue over quality.

If selling a larger quantity of crap means their overall revenue increases, then that's what they will do. That's what I meant by "no matter the cost". A different way to say that would have been "Amazon Marketplace optimizes for increased revenue at the cost of quality".

Marketplace is an easy way to increase revenue. No need for R&D. Just allow all sorts of counterfeit crap to commingle in existing warehouse, and generate revenue on fulfillment. The more crap you sell, the more you increase your revenue.

The more Amazon increases its revenue, the more the stock market rewards it. Wall Street values Amazon almost exclusively on revenue growth. Bezos has made clear that his #1 goal is revenue, and Wall Street has embraced that metric.

Not coincidentally, supermarkets are very high revenue operations with very low profit margins.