[phil21]

> If Amazon is shipping things cheaper, it's because they are using it as a loss leader. You don't really think it costs them $0 to ship things, do you?

No, I'm specifically talking about actual dollars paid to UPS. I run (ran) a small business, and we shipped about a pallet or two (overall) a week. Amazon's leaked UPS rates a few years back were about 30% of our already heavily discounted (from what a retail customer would pay) rates. Where did the $0 shipping comment come from?

You also can commit to a spend with Fedex/UPS of relatively small amounts (4 figures/mo) and get an immediate and painless 25-40% off immediately.

Like I said there is a lot of margin there, at least in certain segments of the business. I'm just not sure how much or where exactly the costs are (there may be very legitimate reasons why serving Amazon costs less than half of serving me) to know if there is a retail cost play.