[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."