[timbray]

We agree, AWS is a clean break, ads is way more messy.

But ads only works because of Amazon retail's sorta-kinda-monopoly position. It's still a big distortion of the market. But I don't have a bright idea what to do about it.

[jsnell]

Isn't it kind of self-correcting? The more Amazon pushes products sold by third parties, the worse shopping at Amazon becomes. The worse shopping at Amazon becomes, the more people will shop elsewhere and not see the ads.

[__derek__]

Absolutely. Every HN thread about Amazon retail is littered with comments about giving up on shopping there and finding a better experience (e.g., less junk, cheaper prices, better selection) elsewhere. If anything, the growth of Amazon Ads has pushed e-commerce spend to Walmart, the actual leader in retail.

[_rs]

I agree 100%. However, a lot of my woes with Amazon are due to inventory commingling- because I make sure to only buy Ships & Sold by Amazon items.

With that said, Walmart is beginning to push 3rd party sellers a lot online too, and filtering for items sold by Walmart can be difficult. A lot of times items show up as in stock in search results only to actually not be in stock when I finally load the product or cart pages, and Walmart will often switch these to in-store pick up automatically which is frustrating as the nearest store to me is quite far. I’ve had good luck shopping at Target but their prices are almost never as competitive.

[__derek__]

That sounds like a frustrating experience. I don't shop at Walmart because Seattle is kind of a Walmart desert (whereas Amazon return drops are everywhere), but it always seems like there are comments promoting it in those threads.

[thexumaker]

lmao as someone who spent a couple months at Walmart global tech, they may be the leaders in retail but they are not stealing Amazon customers. If anything Target, Wayfair, Best Buy, TJ Max etc are taking more market share.

Last time I shopped at Walmart, it was a mess and their e commerce is even worse, products come all beat up, 3rd party policies are a free for all atm, and the scams are even worse there

[__derek__]

The other stores' taking e-commerce share would be consistent with the spirit of the comment, IMO.

I agree on the third-party products/listings. I have to assume that Sam Walton is turning in is grave because it all seems like a perversion of old-school merchandising.

[cbsmith]

Amazon retail is a tent pole... Not unlike a blockbuster movie that might not even be profitable, but creates profits for all kinds of businesses around it.

[HDThoreaun]

I'm not sure we do. Amazon retail at this point from a business perspective is nothing but a way to sell ads. Talking about retail losing money when not counting ads is like saying google search loses money when not counting ads. And no, Amazon would still be able to sell ads if they had a smaller market share.

[jacobr1]

Also the ads are generally directed to some _other_ site, they are for hosted-on-amazon-retail storefronts or product listings.