[GlennS]

I'd guess that's not on the cards any more. Amazon has been building up in Australia over the last few years.

I think most Australians aren't yet aware how much better online shopping is everywhere else, and my bet is Amazon is getting ready to crush the local competition.

[rightbyte]

Amazon is not good online shopping though. It is an uncurated mess of drop-shippers with the low hanging fruit sold by Amazon them self. How is Amazon actually doing in places where they were not first movers?

[lozenge]

Revealed preferences- Amazon is a very successful online shopping site.

Amazon isn't drop shipping. Drop shipping is when the goods are sent straight from the manufacturer to the consumer. Most orders on Amazon are using Amazon Prime/fulfilled by Amazon meaning the goods (whether third party owned or Amazon owned) were stored in Amazon's warehouse before they were shipped to the costumer. Prime 2 day/1 day delivery would be impossible if the goods were dropshipped from Asia.

[tomnipotent]

> Drop shipping is when the goods are sent straight from the manufacturer to the consumer

It just means another party besides the seller is fulfilling the order, such as any product on Amazon shipped by the marketplace seller.

[AussieWog93]

Ecommerce guy here!

Dropshipping, specifically, means that the seller doesn't actually own any of the items they sell, and instead forwards any orders they receive to another business. This is of course very low-risk, as the seller doesn't tie up any of their own capital in a potentially bad product.

Amazon's service, FBA, is an example of something similar called "third party fulfillment". In this arrangement, the seller physically owns the stock they sell, but contract out Amazon to store and ship it. The seller must put the money upfront to buy the products, and if it turns out to be a flop they eat a big loss.

[tomnipotent]

Amazon doesn't only offer FBA. Many sellers fulfill from their own facilities. The only difference from traditional drop shipping is that the customer is aware of the shipper, but Amazon still owns the transaction, customer, and all communications.

[AussieWog93]

Ahh, gotcha.

[ImaCake]

I’ve used amazon in NSW and it’s the only time I’ve had an issue with online shopping. The package was empty! I had no easy recourse because the item was only about $25.

Australians are used to using alternatives to Amazon, and I hope they continue to do so. Amazon’s awful treatment of workers has no place in Australia.

[MomoXenosaga]

Bol.com is the Dutch Amazon. They copied Amazon and started twenty years ago.

They are even more efficient than Amazon and introduced third party sellers a few years ago. And so far they are quite successful in fighting off Amazon. Just goes to show Amazon is not unbeatable.

[viraptor]

It's not better. Screwing over suppliers, manipulating prices to get rid of smaller retailers, funneling people to choose a specific brand with bigger Amazon cut, listing endless variations of simple items from many "different" sellers, fake paid reviews, item listing takeovers, and many others issues make me choose direct sales over Amazon even where it's available.