[simonsarris]

All the time.

They tried to make a move into retail registers to compete with Square, and failed. They shuttered Amazon register in 2015: https://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/30/amazon-shutting-do...

They tried to take on Etsy with Amazon Handmade which bombed Etsy stock, but Handmade has gone pretty much nowhere, except some re-branding this year.

People just forget Amazon's failed ventures, even fairly high profile ones, because there are so many, and the hits sometimes so large (like AWS).

Quoting myself from April:

> Amazon's ethos of "Announce fast, Release fast, if it fails, oh well" is intentional. From Bezos' point of view, this is actually a feature. In a shareholder letter in 2016, he called Amazon "The best place in the world to fail." He wants lots of teams working on lots of products, and if some of them don't pan out, that's OK. This has lead to a lot of successes, but also a number of small headaches for consumers who use products that are quickly discontinued and (charitably) forgotten.

[atourgates]

From a consumer adoption standpoint, the only thing standing in Amazon Register's way was a lack of marketing.

As a merchant, it was amazing. They offered promotional rate of 1.75%, which is basically impossible to beat for any small business.

For context, Square and most "simple pay per swipe" merchant service providers charge 2.75%. If you go out and get a really good deal from a intrchange+ provider, you might be able to get your rate down close to 2%. But Amazon Register got you below that with significantly less hassle, no subscription fees and a $0 equipment cost.

My wife used it at her small business for a year, and during that year I loved getting proposals from other banks and merchant service providers. Many had an offer like, "Let us audit your merchant fees, and if we can't beat them, we'll give you a $200 gift card."

I always gave them the opportunity to try, but with the caveat that there was no way they could beat our current rates, and I wasn't going to take their money when they failed. Mostly, I just never heard back after they realized I wasn't BS'ing about the fees we were paying.

If Amazon Register had been more widely promoted, they could/should have been able to get every credit-card-accepting small business in the country signed up at least for the promotional period. I'd love to see some kind of post-mortem to explain why they didn't.

[colechristensen]

Was it amazing because of the rate or for other reasons?

The rate seems like it was just imaginary. Their promotion was that Amazon was willing to lose a significant amount of money to gain market share.

[DenisM]

My credit card cash back is 2.00%, your 1.75% promotional rate was losing them money.

[misterbwong]

There were quite a few people taking advantage of this promotional rate. It was a fun time.

[dalore]

It's 2.00% but with caveats. Usually max limit per year or such.

[collinmanderson]

I have 2% through Citi Double Cash (and yes, it really is 2%, not 1.98%). No caps at all.

[mobilefriendly]

They also make money on the data.

[cabaalis]

> They tried to take on Etsy with Amazon Handmade which bombed Etsy stock, but Handmade has gone pretty much nowhere, except some re-branding this year.

Is severely damaging another online vendor really a failure for Amazon? It seems to me at that level, revenue from a venture is not always the only measure of success.

[simonsarris]

I had wondered that.

Disclaimer, I'm long SQ.

If you're following AMZN, SQ, or PYPL, you probably saw the headlines back in April:

Amazon's Next Mission: Using Alexa to Help You Pay Friends

Firm looks to make voice commands the next wave of commerce

SQ and PYPL took a small dive on this news, even though at face value, its quite silly. Amazon would probably have a much better time trying to buy PayPal for Venmo or Square for Cash App but also to compete in the small-biz transaction field that Amazon tried and gave up on. Building out such a service based on Alexa users is wacky, and there doesn't seem to be a pressing need to let loose your wallet via voice.

Personally, I think it's somewhat unlikely that AMZN would acquire PYPL due to a clash of cultures when it comes to customer service. (Amazon's: Very good. PayPal's: Legendarily evil). This reputation may also be the reason PayPal has kept their own name off of their Venmo acquisition product until very recently. I think there is a very slight chance that AMZN would try to acquire SQ. It would allow them to really break into small-vendor retail where they have failed with homegrown solutions before, and give them instant access to a growing P2P transaction market. Everybody loves to speculate about such acquisitions, though.

...But it would certainly be funny if the only reason Amazon made that press release was to butter up one of those two companies for acquisition, either by decreasing their share value or exerting pressure on them internally to agree to a deal before they face Amazon's competition.

[pm90]

Its hard to discern what they were thinking of. But I feel like you are overthinking it. Having worked at companies of all sizes, many products are often some executives' pet project to make a splash and other execs just let them do what they want if they're not fucking up other shit too much or taking much needed resources away from other things. Many of the failed ventures may just have been a result of that.

[simonsarris]

I think that's a good counterpoint.

[hbosch]

As an aside, Etsy has really more hurt themselves. There is a conversation upthread about counterfeits on Amazon — Etsys problem is the flood of generic Chinese goods on sale as “handmade”.

[rtkwe]

I'm struggling to find exactly where Amazon Handmade 'bombed' Etsy's stock in the first place. It was originally announced in 2015 and expanded later last year but both times Etsy has had a small single digit percentage sell off and recovered. Today they're back to above their IPO numbers even.

[thisisit]

> Is severely damaging another online vendor really a failure for Amazon?

Yes because while Etsy stock dropped by 60% to less than $10 it has recovered back 42 dollars about 3 years later.

[coredog64]

I can't recall which book it was, but there was a story about very early Microsoft attempts at pen computing (like mid-90s at the latest). They created some scripted demos that looked great and failed, and another executive said something like "you sure pooched that". The response was "I wasn't trying to score a touchdown. I'm the special teams guy trying to block a kick."

[Riesling]

Two additional quotes from Bezos himself:

> "If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness."

> "If you decide that you’re going to do only the things you know are going to work, you’re going to leave a lot of opportunity on the table."

[kylestlb]

And who could forget the Fire Phone debacle?

[greenail]

it's not about how big the failure was, it is about how much was learned from it that can be used in the future.

[Mahn]

> lots of teams working on lots of products, and if some of them don't pan out, that's OK

Basically the modern tech titan mantra. The only company out of the big 5 that isn't doing this is Apple.

[stirlo]

I'm sure Apple does too, the only difference is they test internally and squash them before the public knows about them rather than letting them fail in the marketplace.

[vpmpaul]

Dont forget one of their biggest failures. Fire Phone.

[joeax]

+ I'm wary of Amazon Grocery. We had a bad experience with home delivery 10 years ago and my wife refuses to do it again. For packaged goods and non-perishables it's fine, but with fresh meats and produce it's hit and miss.

It may not be failure but I doubt it will kill or disrupt the grocery business.

[r00fus]

Amazon Fresh - I was really down on the idea, but they do a decent job - better than the alternatives in my limited experience with them.

Items are well packed but not excessively (Google Express once sent me a bubble-wrapped bottle in a giant box for when I just ordered peanut butter - talk about waste).

Frozen items have cooling packs that are reusable and recyclable (pure ice + plastic skin) - and (this was actually useful) frozen drinking water bottles (useful packaging!)

The quality of the groceries were good. Unlike Safeway where sometimes I got what looked like older veggies.

My (more extensive) experiences with both Google Express and Safeway were inferior in little ways. I want to hate Amazon, but they're doing great for grocery delivery.

[xkjkls]

I'm pretty sure their grocery business has changed alot in the last 10 years, and will probably change even more with the integration of Whole Foods.

[Cents]

Groceries online make me very happy. I'm a convert. Carts queues and parking are anachronisms.

There won't be wide adoption until the customer gets a perfect order with no substitutions or blemishes every time. The psychology of perceived loss at not getting EXACTLY what was ordered is too great. Until then millions of disappointed people will discourage others.

[jawr]

Carts queues and parking still happen, they're just being hidden from you.

[workinfunk]

Only with services like Instacart where they literally pay people to go and do your shopping for you. Real, end-to-end grocery services like FreshDirect do not.

[mac01021]

Even then, there are trucks that park somewhere and containers of grocery product queueing up to be loaded into them...

[anderskev]

I never used Grocery, but used Amazon Fresh a few times in recent months. The experience was awful and after 3 orders I went back to just going to a store. Amazon clearly pays their last mile delivery people way under market and it shows. Rude, unprofessional, late and then harass you until you until you fork over a cash tip high enough to make it worth their effort. They also have a strange hangup about getting the bags back--one guy just kept the cooler bags in his van and handed me a stack of half melted frozen chicken, on another delivery my items were just left in the vestibule of my building, again not in a cooler bag.

This is pretty much exactly what I would do if I was at a job where: 1) I didn't care at all and it was temporary 2) I'm also getting paid nothing to do it. So I can't really fault the delivery people in this situation.

The TL;DR is that there is just no margin when it comes to food. Grocery, restaurants, meal kits, etc. People keep trying to deliver these experiences to your home, and having spent 5 years cooking in a restaurant and my entire childhood growing up on a farm I've reached the conclusion that it can't be done. Once you add in the cost of human labor for physical delivery, the margins go from slim to negative.

[iamatworknow]

> People keep trying to deliver these experiences to your home, and having spent 5 years cooking in a restaurant and my entire childhood growing up on a farm I've reached the conclusion that it can't be done.

I think you (and I) might be in the minority here and not their intended market. I don't know anyone with experience cooking who would prefer any meal or grocery delivery services over just doing it themselves. They're probably only focused on the market whose only previous alternative is instant/frozen meals or takeout.

To us: Shitty delivery + mediocre quality = Net negative

To their intended market: Delivery on par with take out + quality that's better than take out = Net positive

[petra]

Maybe, at this stage, Grocery pickup is The right thing to build.

A very convenient experience, and it gets a lot of people doing the order online.

Once you have that, and if you can convince people to get their orders at a fixed weekly window, you get delivery density, which is key at lowering shipping costs.

And as far making delivery times convenient in this method - you need to loan your customers a passively chilled box they can put on their porch, so they can pick the deliveries when they come home.

Maybe Amazon could have done this while skipping pickup. But since it's less convenient , it's hard to convince people to pay more, and maybe competitors are cheaper.

But going straight away to on-demand deliveries, with 2 hour delivery time? Sure, that's crazy.