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by NBJack
1059 days ago
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First, who said anything about profit? That isn't even part of the definition of monopoly. The killer feature none of those you've listed has been able to achieve is the shipping logistics. This enables their vast selection to be more than just window dressing; contrast this with say Best Buy if the part or item isn't at a local store. Meanwhile, there have been quite a few previously thriving retailers whom are now either on life support or gone. Anecdotally, I watched several major chains die at the hands of the one upon a time up- and-coming Amazon.com. The number of book stores alone that were killed off is tragic. https://www.moneytalksnews.com/9-major-companies-face-threat... https://ilsr.org/fact-sheet-how-breaking-up-amazon-can-empow... |
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The commenter is responded to compared Amazon to the other big tech companies. Profit margin is an indicator of how much control a business has over its market. You cannot earn high profit margins if your customers can go somewhere else if you increase your prices, which means low profit margins means competitors exist.
Shipping logistics is not a huge thing. UPS/FedEx/USPS do what Amazon’s logistics do. All the other retailers also have warehouses (including their stores) all over the US. You might have to wait 1 or 2 or 3 days longer to receive the item, but it is not huge.
I would guess book stores would have gone out of business anyway, due to the ease of shipping books and the lack of urgency of people needing them. Little reason to pay all the capital and labor costs of running a book store if book buyers do not mind buying online. And of course, ebooks came along anyway.
The big competitive advantage Amazon had in earlier years was they did not have to collect sales tax from customers in most states, and they arbitraged that into gaining market share and allowing them to invest in their logistics and expand without incurring heavy losses. But that has been gone for 5 years since the South Dakota v Wayfair ruling in mid 2018.