[throwaway6497]

Walmart was forced to pay $15 Billion by Amazon, I think. Amazon-India is already a force to reckon with in India. They have a ton of customer love in India, and they are killing it. There is no reason for them to buy Flipkart. They did the required to hurt their competitor by feigning interest. Bezos is a master at deception. Well played, Bezos and Flipkart investors. Stingy Walmart has to cough up more money.

[seshagiric]

If Walmart pays a large amount, it is still advantageous to Amazon but does not look like that was the only ploy.

Amazon may have actually tried hard to prevent Walmart gain a foothold in online retail. Flipkart is reported as the largest or 2nd largest online retailer in India, to prevent that volume going to Walmart Amazon may have tried hard and pushed price in the process.

[wpietri]

And I'd add that a high price hurts Walmart more than Amazon. Amazon's market cap is 3x Walmart's. Amazon has $31 billion in cash and short-term investments; Walmart has about $7 billion. On top of this, presumably Walmart will be investing heavily in expansion.

I think Walmart's stinginess is also an important point here. At this price, plus the additional money they put in, a good ROI gets harder. Bezos has never really cared about short-term ROI, but I wonder if Walmart will be inclined to be impatient or under-invest later because of the high price now.

[skinnymuch]

Is anyone besides Google contributing. I think I read Google is giving $3B so that’s a decent chunk.

I’m guessing they wanted Softbank out for control in general and since Softbank loves to control, otherwise they could’ve saved another $4B and let Softbank keep 20% control.

[ENOTTY]

"Google-parent Alphabet Inc. is likely to participate in the investment with Walmart, said one of the people"

Walmart is getting help.

[mtgx]

That may be so, but now that it can afford it, Amazon has every intention of becoming a monopoly in the markets it enters. It's why they bought the #1 retailer in the Middle East, too:

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-amazon-s...

People love Amazon now, but I think it's time to fear it. They're already in bed with governments for multi-billion contracts, and are aiming for monopoly power. They won't behave well for much longer, and I'd argue they've already started behaving badly (raising prices on consumers, lowering commissions on affiliates, and so on).

[HillaryBriss]

> I think it's time to fear it.

as a consumer, i agree. but so do a lot of companies.

Run down the list of private sectors that spend the most on information technology -- health care, banking, retail, insurance -- and all of them worry Amazon is coming for them.

https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2018-02-15/worried...

[Cyph0n]

The acquisition of Souq was mainly a response to the announcement of Noon, a $1 billion Souq competitor out of KSA.

[dominotw]

I agree with amazon killing it. I used to shop both on flipkart and amazon. Now I just shop on Amazon. At some point I just stopped checking flipkart.

[piyush_soni]

Same here. I think the reason was the amazing customer service at Amazon, and mostly the effective price on Amazon was always lower.

[meko]

Until they become a monopoly and all that good customer service dissolves down the drain. It's already happening in the US.

[ryanmarsh]

Thank god I haven’t had that happen yet. I’ve had Amazon give above-and-beyond customer service twice recently. They gave me discounts and credits I wasn’t even asking for. I hope it doesn’t go down the drain but I suppose at some point it’s bound to happen.

[ekianjo]

we keep hearing this yet there is hardly good evidence for this. And if if occurs then more opportiunities open for their competitors.

[beiller]

How about cable companies? Some argue Amazon is subsidized in the same way, by having USPS shipping cheaply to the outskirts.

[bonesss]

USPS negotiates rates with companies that engage in bulk transactions at scale. The claim that Amazon is ripping off the USPS is... well that's "fake news":

> [Amazons] rates are kept under wraps. That said, we do know the Amazon deal is at least a break-even venture.

> That’s because the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act made it illegal for USPS to price parcel delivery below its cost.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/apr/...

[cthalupa]

My understanding is that this argument is not a particularly good one.

I may be incorrect, but my understanding is that while Amazon pays a discounted rate, this is the same as any other bulk shipper for USPS, and in fact, without Amazon, many routes would not be profitable for USPS without Amazon.

[pravinva]

Cable companies have bureaucracy granted turf protection. Nonsuch exists in retail. You really ought to examine the business model of Amazon

[ekianjo]

cable tv you mean? Its not comparable since many have local monopolies in practice.

[balladeer]

Customer service and total disregard for what customers wants. Not to mention their "mobile only" stupidity starting with Myntra which they were trying to extend to Flipkart but stopped just in time.

I just can't believe that Flipkart still doesn't have filter and sort by ratings. There can be arguments about how effective ratings are but this is one feature I definitely need for buying or booking anything - from my stationary to hotels and buses.

PS. I just logged in to Flipkart to check whether they have added that feature yet. I guess my last login was a year ago or more. Last purchase was on July 29, 2015.

[actuator]

I think Prime also killed it. Fast deliveries and no minimum amount ended up making Amazon the first choice in my head.

[intended]

Didn’t someone calculate that prime prices were too low and will rise (and were already rising)?

[colmvp]

I'm so jealous. In Canada, Amazon is pretty pathetic.

So many things are out of stock, or not available for purchase.

The few things that are available for purchase are sometimes only offered by third-parties, who jack up the price by an exorbitant amount.

[r_singh]

I've read multiple times on HN that Amazon isn't doing very well in other countries (like US, Canada, Argentina, etc.) and that Prime is super expensive as well.

In India, Amazon is so good its hard to imagine how it will be sustainable. I paid $8/year for prime (yes a year) and they're now selling it at $16/year for free 24 hours delivery.

However, I can foresee how it may not be as good in the near future. Try buying a pair of Apple Airpods and one soon figures AMZN is not best place to make the purchase, it's so hard to tell which seller / product is genuine!

[is_true]

There's no Amazon in Argentina.

[r_singh]

You're right. I misunderstood a reply that said, "I pay 99USD for Amazon Prime here in Argentina". Didn't think the user was talking about US Amazon Prime purchased from Argentina.

[bsder]

I'm going to assume you aren't in the US because that simply isn't true here.

Amazon is quite often not the lowest price. And, while they do still seem to be quite liberal with "send it back and we'll refund plus <mumble>", that doesn't matter if you can't get a genuine product because of all the counterfeits.

[ctvo]

The only place on the internet I read about Amazon's supposed counterfeit problem is on HackerNews.

I buy everything on Amazon, and I've never had this problem. Do you have any data to back up this claim?

[schmidttyOIB]

Well, “I’ve never had this problem” doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

From a quick search (says “Apple Computer”, but tell me if that’s really made by Apple or not): https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0787CFNRQ/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?ie=...

[ctvo]

I never said it didn’t exist. I asked for data. In a marketplace as large as Amazon’s finding a single example isn’t indicative of a wide spread problem.

[ReverseCold]

You won't have a problem if you buy "big-ticket" (I'm using this word incorrectly, but hopefully you get what I mean. Normal consumer goods(?).)

If you buy something used, or something with a lot of knockoffs (Xiaomi) or old tech (GameCube Controllers) there is a chance you will get a counterfeit.

I switched to buying all that stuff from eBay and it's much better. Untrusted-by-default makes eBay a very healthy marketplace to buy and sell in.

[freehunter]

I said the same thing a year ago. I didn't believe Amazon had counterfeit products, I'd never had one, I could tell fake from real, everyone is just buying sketchy shit and should know better. I didn't believe it one bit.

Then within the last year I've started receiving probably one out of five products being very blatant fakes. I only order Prime items and only sold from the manufacturer and only brand name, but I still get counterfeit items. It's actually driven me back to retail stores for items where I 100% need to get the real thing.

[qaq]

I think people are posting based on their personal experience I got fake macbook Pro charger (sold and fulfilled by Amazon) 2 times out of 5 purchases so now just buy directly from apple when I need any Apple accessories.

[jazoom]

>I'm going to assume you aren't in the US because that simply isn't true here.

I'm pretty sure most of these comments are about Amazon India since that's what this discussion is about.

[rakamotog]

From India, wish there was a way to separate, cheap products (yes, I can filter via price) and counterfeit products to get some high-quality products (albeit at a higher price point). So many of my recent decisions have been offline because I can't figure out which products are high quality. ex:- phone charger (the quick charge one, wire tears in days), infusion water bottle (breaks in months), Bluetooth earphones (This one was a nightmare) Wish there was a filter for this on Amazon!

[freehunter]

Same thing with Amazon in the US. I want a metal water bottle with a flip-top lid but I can't find any in my local stores. I find them on Amazon, but the reviews always say "I didn't get the brand, I got a counterfeit product" so I haven't bought one yet.

I ended up paying $30 extra for my backpack I bought recently because I didn't trust the Amazon items were real after reviews saying they were counterfeit. And these are Prime items, sold by the manufacturer, but they're stilling coming counterfeit.

[plussed_reader]

"And these are Prime items, sold by the manufacturer, but they're stilling coming counterfeit."

Part of this sentence isn't true.

[freehunter]

As in, Amazon says it's a Prime item, and Amazon says the seller is the manufacturer, but when you receive the item they've sent you a counterfeit item.

[ryanlol]

It takes less time to get a refund than it takes to read the reviews, why do you care?

[freehunter]

Because it takes two days to get to me, then I have to contact support and get a refund and send the item back, then wait another two days to get the item and hope it's real. Or wait two days to get the item, then still have to drive to the store to get the real thing.

And in the meantime, I already used the cable and it burned my house down and now half my family is dead. But yeah, I can get a quick refund no problem.

Why do I care? What kind of ridiculous question is that?

[ryanlol]

Amazon has never wanted me to return anything, but I guess YMMV. Refunding stuff over the live chat is a breeze.

Sure, you might want to exercise caution with some product categories and time sensitive things.