[paletoy]

The right way to implement "ship to store" is using something like "amazon locker". Assuming that's the correct route, amazon will win, because it can choose better locations than a walmart store . And in retail location is everything.

But the fact that amazon has tried some lockers but it doesn't seem the common way to buy stuff, and there's no huge scaling effort from amazon, seems to indicate that people prefer to recieve packages at home.

And bezos understands that in this game, if you want to make profits, you need for customers to love using your services.Having that ability at low enough costs could earn you a monopoly. And than might be the time to play with "amazon lockers" and other cost cutting measures.

[dm2]

The Amazon Lockers seem to only benefit Amazon because the shipping is much cheaper for them. If they offered a discount or credit for using the lockers then it could potentially be a useful service.

What is the benefit of using an Amazon Locker rather than shipping to your home? Maybe in neighborhoods that have a high stealing packages percentage.

The term lockers also imply (incorrectly) that they are supposed to be purchased by people for packages to be shipped to (like a PO box), the name might be hurting their success.

I can't find anywhere on any of the Amazon Locker pages where it lists a single benefit of using the lockers, http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=6442600011&ref=locker_fd_brws

[paletoy]

I think that shipping fees for amazon are much lower than prices offered for people at say ups. Offering half of that, wouldn't be attractive and will probably hurt the amazon brand.

[dm2]

They already offer (or use to) a credit if you choose standard shipping while being a prime member. The Subscribe & Save does something similar.

[paletoy]

How much credit do they give ? And what's the difference between services ?

[dm2]

It was $1 when I saw it, the link below says it's now $3. It's a credit for Amazon movies/music though, so it doesn't actually cost Amazon $3.

http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-no-rush-delivery-2012-...

From my experience the difference is that they delay shipping your item. They claim to have one of the best shipping and handling systems in the world but for some reason they save money by delaying boxing an order for a week, it doesn't really make sense to me. I think they're really just trying to get people to purchase Prime.

[sokoloff]

I'm sure that there's an aspect of what you say at work, but I can also imagine that they have a certain amount of "pick and pack" capacity at their fulfillment centers.

By choosing 2-day, you're forcing Amazon to pick and pack that order today probably, tomorrow at the very latest.

By choosing "no rush", you allow them flexibility to fulfill from a wide variety of centers, on a wide variety of days. Maybe there's a weekly cycle in order volume and no rush orders may allow them to even that out with a more constant labor force.

[vidarh]

In the UK they also offers "Collect Plus" - a delivery option where they ship to a participating nearby corner store and you pick it up from the tills. In my case it's a 3 minute walk to the nearest Collect Plus location, and they're "everywhere" near us, or we have 15 minute bus ride to the nearest locker..

[paletoy]

Collect plus sounds really good. How much does it cost ?