[YCode]

A lot of people don't realize (or maybe care?) that Amazon makes up a fair amount of that loss from screwing over distributors and third party sellers.

The Walmart of the Internet, I suppose.

FWIW I usually try to find more direct sources before buying on Amazon. If the other source can drop a few bucks off the Amazon price and offer free shipping I'll buy it direct from them.

[sidlls]

Free shipping for what delivery time frame?

Amazon Prime's fees are quite small compared to direct shipping costs with carriers. It depends on the product type, of course, but typically third-party sellers are already on thin margins selling on Amazon. It's very likely that "drop a few bucks off the Amazon price and offer free shipping" means they're selling to you at a loss.

[YCode]

I'm not generally in a rush; if they can get it here in a week or two that's fine as long as they tell me what day it'll be here.

I'm not saying it's a great deal for the company, but what can you expect consumers to do if Amazon has the cheapest price AND prime shipping you already paid for?

That said some companies at least raise their prices on purpose when posting to Amazon in order to meet their standards for things like returns and Prime shipping.

[nostrebored]

You say this like it's somehow a bad thing? Amazon has built an extremely efficient distribution network comprised of all major shipping companies and a vast array of third party sellers. The price you're seeing is the result of billions of dollars of investment paying off.

[twothamendment]

Most of the time I'm not in a rush, but I still pick 2-day Prime because it gets delivered to my door by UPS or sometimes FedEx. If I select slower shipping or order from another site it might come USPS or SurePost (handed off to the USPS). Best case with USPS is it ends up in the mail box down the road - worst case I have to drive to town and get it at the post office.

If Amazon would let me pick a slow option that was still UPS/Fedex, I'd do it. Same with other sites, sometimes I won't buy from them if they only ship USPS and I know it won't fit in the box.

For me, Prime is great because it means most thing come to my door at no extra (other than the yearly fee) cost.

[SubiculumCode]

thin profit margins on amazon is not the same as costs of doing business on amazon. Amazon takes a hefty cut.

[sidlls]

Amazon's cut all in (shipping, listing, stocking, etc.) is often on par with the shipping cost for the slowest option with carriers.

[omarchowdhury]

15-20% of price sold at? No way.

[djsumdog]

I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart around 2009. When I returned to the US in 2012, I saw Amazon as the new Wal-Mart and stopped shopping there.

I realize Target and Kroger probably implement the same tactics as WM now, same with eBay/Newegg sellers and Amazon, so I realize it's more symbolic than anything.

[trendroid]

Do you have good resources in mind on Walmart's harmful practices? Yes, I can search internet but looking for long sophisticated essays or even good books on the topic that you may have come across.

I am not from US but currently studying here and haven't thought much about this topic. Walmart, Walgreen and Amazon feel too convenient. I would love to learn more on the topic before it becomes a habit.

[xxXXxx-]

Wikipedia has a good summary with 180+ citations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Walmart

[YCode]

You definitely want to review that page, especially the working conditions and health insurance sections.

[thaumasiotes]

You don't avoid shopping at Walmart because of "Walmart's harmful practices". You avoid shopping at Walmart because you're better than the kind of people who shop at Walmart. Then you start talking about Walmart's harmful practices to try to confuse other people.

[someone7x]

This wikipedia page[1] is a good start. In particular the last section about dead peasants insurance is the first story I encountered about Walmart's harmful practices.

> Critics, as well as the United States Internal Revenue Service, charge that the company was trying to profit from the deaths of its employees, and take advantage of the tax law which allowed it to deduct the premiums.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Walmart

[adventured]

Going back a quarter century or so, the biggest complaints against Walmart have commonly been thus:

- Extremely aggressive about interrupting unionization attempts.

- Relatively low pay, particularly for the bottom 1/2 of employees.

- They squeeze suppliers to restrain prices to the benefit of consumers. This essentially adds another aggrieved voice in the crowd.

- Then there's a very broad, vague, low value argument about the soul of communities being destroyed by their presence. This premise was particularly common ~15 years ago. It has turned out to be almost entirely bunk, so it's an argument rarely used against them today. Today, the focus is overwhelmingly on pay, specifically that their low wages force tax payers to subsidize said wages.

Most of these arguments collapse upon rational inspection. For example, they universally pay better than mom & pop local stores and employ far more people in small & mid size towns / communities. Then the argument gets flipped: it then gets said that they intentionally pay higher than local competitors, and advocate in favor of higher minimum wage laws, to crush local competition (ie damned if they do, damned if they don't).

The same people that dislike Walmart, you'll find, will frequently lodge 'for the common good' arguments economically. Walmart acts for the good of the many, as they squeeze supplier margins to hold prices down. Somehow saving 200 million people money is turned against them as a negative.

Their low pay is an interesting issue unto itself. Their margins are hyper low, at 2.5% net income margins; their sales have been flat and profits have been falling for years. If they pay each employee just another $4,000 to $5,000 per year, they'd go bankrupt (particularly as they begin the long hard war with Amazon). They're often contrasted with Costco, which pays meaningfully higher wages; however Costco manages that by employing far fewer people per dollar of sales. To match Costco on that, Walmart would have to fire at least half a million people, most of whom have few skills to do any other higher paying jobs.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the low pay / tax payer subsidy issue, is who the tax payers are that are doing the subsidizing: mostly the rich. The top 1/3 in America pay almost all the income taxes that go toward subsidizing Walmart's bottom 1/2 of employees who earn low wages. This almost never gets discussed when the topic comes up, in fact it's aggressively dodged. The people doing the arguing, are overwhelmingly in favor of the rich subsidizing the poor, but for some reason it's not ok when it comes to this (ie they're actually arguing it's bad that the rich tax payers subsidize Walmart's poorest employees, it's comical). This is just a baseless attack on Walmart, because of what they are. The only alternative to having the top 1/3 subsidize Walmart's poorest employees, is to have those employees lose their jobs and then the subsidy goes to 100% instead of being partial as it is today.