I would say most defiantly. What do you think. ?.

We’ve been using Walmart more and they have been much faster for us here on the south end

Lot's of other businesses that sell the same items, so no.

No, we buy less and less from Amazon due to their slower shipping times for Prime members

No way.

I would say you don’t have the foggiest idea of the definition of a monopoly.

There are a BUNCH of places to order stuff fast fast fast

Doing our kitchen remodel, we've ordered from Amazon but also from Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart, and several other smaller online companies. Amazon is the biggest, to be sure, but they're no monopoly. They haven't prevented others from being in business at all.
I'd rather buy locally but I can find a lot of stuff online that just isn't available here. It's also a ways to town. That makes it a case of patience vs gasoline.

Lots of companies sell what they manufacture on Amazon.

A LOT of the product descriptions are obviously not written by native speakers. Some are written by someone who can't speak English at all. Usually the products are warehoused in the US so you can get them in a few days but once in a while they're shipped direct from China. That takes a while. You have to pay attention to delivery dates.

Absolutely not. You can buy everything thats on amazon from somewhere else.

May not be now, but IMO he is trying to be

Items can ship from anywhere, not just China.

Back in Nov. I ordered a new hydraulic top link for both my tractors. I paid attention to shipping dates and tracking because I knew they had to ship from the manufacturer in the Netherlands.

Sure enough, I had them both within like 5 days. Thought it was interesting they make those in the Netherlands.

Covid-24 will make it undeniable… seems they’re already mighty close.

I recently needed a battery for the Garmin GPS I have in my pickup. I ordered one from Amazon with a 10 day delivery time. The next day the tracking showed it had been given to USPS in CA. But, there it sat. It didn't move for 9 days. I figured the USPS had lost it but I couldn't do anything until the expected delivery date was past. Then, on the 9th day, it appeared on tracking again in CA and on the expected day, it was in my mail box. I don't know what they did with it during that time but I suspect that it was backordered and didn't actually ship when it said it did.
Amazon does a really good job of getting things to you when they say they will. If they give you a date, most of the time it will be there on that day. Their guaranteed Prime 1 day delivery didn't last long, though. When they started it, I figured it would be too costly for them to have weekend deliveries in small areas like this.

Agreed

I placed an order with Amazon last week and it took 4 days before it was even shipped. I don't have Prime..I remember when Prime was $100 cheaper a year:(

What is your evidence for your thesis?

I look at it this way. It doesn't matter if Bezos pays his slaves $19 an hour or $40 per hr., he won't see or feel a difference. He will still have more money than everyone combined on this forum forever. And so will his family for generations.
I just love his rags to riches story. He sold used books and hauled them to the post office in his car. How many other people do you think tried that selling used books? He obviously had a huge team of smart people to figure out things when the internet was new and they created an empire. What do you call that?

Lol, not even close

Over 60% of the stuff sold on Amazon are small companies that have an account with Amazon. Their products may be warehoused by Amazon or Amazon sends the order to the company for fulfillment. Products are sourced from around the world with Ali Baba filling most shipment orders, which links most of the major producers in China and makes it possible for anyone to sell on Amazon.
The increased cost of local shopping, especially large city malls, and their operations costs, have created the success formula for Amazon.
Time-Place-Opportunity

My son was a little boy and watched Bezos interviewed by Neil Cavuto on FOXNEWS in 2001.

Later, the kid told me to buy Amazon stock, so I did....it was only $10/share.

I am in the "Not even close" club.

There are many, many alternatives to purchasing from Amazon. Including the manufacturer's websites, driving downtown to the store, and competing web based sales organizations.

That Amazon is the largest and most successful is nothing but an American success story. I could not care less what he pays his employees. If they do not like the wage, they can go else where. Only a Democrat would think otherwise.

No... I price compare Amazon vs Walmart versus eBay on a regular basis. Amazon is the consumer products version of MidwayUSA. They generally have most things you could ask for. But they are not always the cheapest. Most of my dog food (+100 lbs per month) comes from Walmart. Tide Laundry detergent varies between Walmart and AMZN depending on who has the best deal at the moment.

You have no idea what Amazon is. A hint, They own an entire town, outside of Seattle, a construction company that builds the houses, a real-estate company that sells the houses, a bank that finances the houses, an electronics company that wires all the houses together, a computer company that connects all the smart houses together with Amazon HQ, all the executives above a level 5 live in that town.

Bezoes is the owner of multiple corporations, that all operate on the spinning wheel concept, the faster the wheel spins, the less minor bumps in the road matter. Plus, customer satisfaction is of the #1 major important factor, no matter the cost, the spinning wheel will take care of the bump.

Bezos is a major bundler for the DNC and the owner of the Washington Post also. Of course he has started his own delivery company with his own fleet of trucks and drivers, it is spreading, saw one of the blue delivery vans in NW FL the other day.

They discovered a bit ago that folks had been working at home for them, for three years, and had never even logged in. Hard to work on a computer network and never log in. So now the employees all must go to an office a couple days a week, regardless. That woke crap will bite you, in real business, so could not fire the worst offenders, usual suspects, so now make them come into the office.

Bezos turned the Amazon day to day operations over to his daughter, understand she is a tough and capable cookie. Did not even slow down in the transition.

I just know some people that know some people and I listen.

Most of the things I buy from Amazon arrive the next day.

Bullshit

I bought some used books from Amazon this week, and I bought some used books from the local Goodwill equivalent just this morning. The local store was considerably cheaper.

So, no.

So, are you saying there's something wrong with that.

It sounds to me like a very intelligent, highly motivated man and his family done good, for them selves and (100s of thousands???) employees.

This is a huge seller's market today as far as labor is concerned. If employees are not happy, "There's the door jack. There are hundreds waiting to take your place."

It's Capitalism, and their prices are higher than many local brick & mortar stores.

They now have warehouses all over the place. Most of what we order comes from Nampa, ID, about 150 miles from here. It leaves Nampa and goes to Boise, about 30 miles from Nampa It's reloaded on a truck that crosses southern Idaho every night, dropping stuff at major post offices. Drivers from all the area small PO's go there early in the morning and pick up packages that go to their service area for delivery that day.
Or, it comes from the warehouse in Salt Lake. It's sort of the same process but it goes to UPS instead of the PO.

There are a lot of "company" towns, owned and "staffed" by employees. Walmart has one, Rio-Tinto has several. Could go on. Operations for Amazon are run on several levels, neither Bezos or his daughter have the "sophistication" to make decisions on some of the operations.
Amazon uses the same type of AI internet information collection as Google, and if you have ever used Jungle Tracker or Google's commercial account, you can tell not only when and where the item your using passed thru customs, but where and how much, including country and company of manufacture.

The first items on a search to show up are usually the Prime items, and rarely the cheapest. Doing a price search on a small ticket item isn't going to happen on 80% of sales. If you have ever bought anything over $3k from Amazon that requires shipping -- Amazon's tracking and customer contact with maker is unbeatable.

I like Amazon because they will allow you return almost anything without hassle and you don't have to pack it.

Pretty common nowadays here locally to see at least 25% to as high as 50% Amazon railroad shipping bins on passing CSX trains. Easily more Amazon's than any others.

Not a monopoly as such but their business model caused many large and small companies to come around to Amazon’s way of thinking and doing business.

Competition improves the services available for those who want to stay in business.

Is that from the Wall Street Journal, dumbass?😂

Very true. When shopping, I 1st go to Amazon for info and reviews. Then I price shop and quite often I'll buy elsewhere.

One out of 169 employees in the US now works for Amazon. Right at a million

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/bu...-almost-1-million-people-u-s-or-n1275539

Darn near up to the Gov. at 2.5 mil 'employees

counting the time one shops around, and the gas money involved, Amazon still comes in Cheaper

Home Depot has a lot of stuff online with free home shipping - and no Prime fee to pay. They aren't quite as fast as Amazon but they're close. They're worth checking before you buy from Amazon.

Bunch of numbnuts.

Amazon has about 20k Intermodal containers, JB Hunt has 116k. Amazon's growing and getting bigger for sure but they've a ways to go.

Generally speaking, Amazon and Walmart aren't opposed to min wage increases.


Infact, they often support them. I believe one of the two got forced into increasing its wages.....so they forced the state to increases theirs. I think New York?


They aren't monopolies because they don't need to be. Every min wage hike they support makes them billions....and forces out the little guys.

Not a monopoly,just an azzhole

Amazon may not be a true monopoly, but they seem to have more different products available for relatively quick delivery than anyone else. They are certainly not the cheapest, but they are quick and they have a huge variety to choose from.

I think what a lot of the buying public forgets too - the sellers on Amazon are different. They're not all Amazon. It's an e-mall basically that allows small guys to compete BEYOND their local area. It aggregates supply and demand into one place with a world class logistics department to allow the mom-pop place get their wares in front of more people than just their county.

Is it the best place for all of those wanting to do so? No. But it is A place with massive reach.

Or they can organize and apply pressure.

The, "New", Sears

This... ^ ^ ^

The lower hose in my wife's Shark vacuum cracked rendering it useless. Looked into it yesterday, ordered a news hose and it's out for delivery today. The real pizzer is that Shark uses tamper-proof screws in their assemblies. One freakin screw prevents you from disassembling the vacuum. I ordered a tool set when I ordered the tube, it will be delivered along with the tube.

It's been my experience when buying things from Amazon that prices can and often do fluctuate up and down quite a bit from day to day and even hour to hour. Bought our first LCD TV from Amazon at a fairly substantial savings after placing it on"save for later" and over the next couple of weeks watched the price vary up and down until the it dropped as low as I thought it would go.

Heck, I buy a lot of my reloading gear these days through Amazon. There is something wonky with the RCBS online ordering system. I usually have to call and get help putting an order in.

But never a problem when I order the same dies from Amazon at the same price. As far as I know, they are still shipped directly from RCBS. I doubt that Amazon has a warehouse full of reloading dies.

My wife recently ordered a $1000 acrylic and wood coffee table for the family room through Amazon. It came directly from India, via the proverbial slow boat. Okay, we kind of expected that.

What we did not expect was the vendor attempting to hold us up for additional "import duty" fees during transit. Amazon took care of that post haste.