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Cyber Monday and Amazon's Online Dominance
sturgeon writes "A report out this morning pegs Amazon with a whopping 14% share of all daily Internet users — almost twice the nearest competitor (Ebay). And this number does not include all shopping sites absorbed by the growing Amazon empire. The original report has interesting graphics comparing Amazon to other retailers like Best Buy."
but as an individual using a netbook
You might not be the big spender they're targetting. They maximize for revenue, not for # of shoppers.
Rod Taylor
I love the comparison of Amazon to Ebay's sales. The biggest complaint I regularly see about amazon is when they ship some tiny object in a giant box. (Which is can also be interpreted as Amazon trying really hard to make sure things aren't broken) whereas I read at least one complaint about ebay and or Paypal every day. Ebay has managed to anger the sellers by being totally one sided in disputes while at the same time they do little to clean up the listings to make ebay easy to use. If I want a part for an iPhone (say a new glass screen) I have to scroll through page after page of the same crap like cases and screen protectors. I want a raspberry pi yet it is just page after page of cases. They have no easy mechanism to clear out the crap. Basically all those cases are spam. I suspect that for any search that results in 1000 results that people are buying 4 or 5 of those results over and over and that they other 996 are just making people angry.
The only thing that ebay has improved as far as I am concerned was when they allowed you to sort by lowest price plus shipping. This then eliminated those people who were selling the $20 item for $1 plus $19 shipping.
Amazon has stumbled on a super secret business formula: treat the customer the way you would want to be treated. At least it seems to be secret as few other businesses appear to know about it especially ebay.
YOU OWE USE TAX TO YOUR STATE even if sales tax was not collected at time of purchase -- so pay 'em already you fucking tax deadbeats.
Why, b/c so govt. asshole decided to put his hand in my pocket? If I purchased an item that may have been subject to a tax(and let's get real there's plenty of tax holiday shenanigans an individual could run afoul of), why does the locality get any extra tax? The fuel that powered the truck that made the delivery was taxed, the income used to pay for the item was taxed(Assuming not living in NH, Florida etc). The land on which I will use the item was taxed, so why does the govt get another slice of the pie? Nevermind, the silliness of paying a use tax on a digital download. that has contributed to budget messes for many states?
Sorry, you were looking for unsustainable pension funds and failure to recognize the conflict of interest inherent in collective bargaining of public sector unions. Just ask that rabid union buster FDR. "All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service."
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.