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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."
They generally have better prices or, if not "the" lowest prices, they have better shipping options. Combine that with the lack of Sales Tax collected in the state I live in and the argument can be fairly made that you'd be dumb to go anywhere else.
They've been great for me and have helped me save much over the last year or so just in shipping costs. Places like Newegg are adapting and "trying" to match Amazon but, at least in Newegg's case, they seem to be failing.
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
I needed to get a few items this holiday season:
1. LEDTV
2. Digital camera and accessories
3. Kindle (original)
4. Clothes
5. Toys
6. Books
7. Misc
I got 6/7 items on Amazon. Why? A few reasons: I'm already an Amazon Prime member (as a student it was just stupid cheap and I like the streaming options for kids shows) and the very few times I've had a problem with what was shipped to me they have been nothing but spectacular in dealing with it; usually just immediately shipping out a new item without me having to send what I already received back before they'd send a new item.
I also personally believe the shopping experience is far superior to the other online options I looked through (NewEgg, Target and Walmart). Target's site was slow, cumbersome and confusing. Walmart was somewhat similar to Target but at least their site loaded and Amazon's prices were lower for the same or very similar product and next-day option at $3.99 or free at 2 day killed anything I saw elsewhere.
Overall Amazon has been a winner for me for years for bigger purchases and if they keep it up, they'll continue to get my business. While I don't consider myself a HUGE buyer at the holidays, aside from the clothing I bought for my wife where I needed a very specific item that wasn't available anywhere but where I purchased it from.
YMMV.
So if someone can find a mirror.
Amazon is huge because it has great customer service. I rather work with Amazon than even Wal-Mart (which has a very liberal return policy) or any of the big-box retailers and I rather go through Amazon than any other local retailer simply because their returns and shipping policies.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I thought Best Buy was Amazon's brick and mortar showroom?!?
Why not post interesting stuff. Amazon excels at what it does. If you don't want to buy from them, there is a whole world out there from which you can choose. They seem to play well with small businesses from what I see from their search engine. I hate talking to folks from India when I have a problem, but it does get resolved for the most part. They always seem to issue refunds and returns with me. A 'good' company.
Yawn.
....they want your netbook back.
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 thought the riaa/mpaa assholes had told us that 90% of all internet traffic was piracy related...
This implys they lied.... thats unpossible!
Not only that, but there're little bits of Flash in various places for some reason or other.
The wish list interface is quite nice though, and I'm finding that a lot of what I'm managing (in private lists) is from other vendors using Amazon's Universal Wish List feature (which isn't making them any money).
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Cyber Monday is about as much of a scam as Black Friday, and furthermore, using the prefix "cyber" in this sense is annoying unless you are in a 1980s novel.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
They made a severe mistake in that summary. The actual, 2012 rankings of highest gross sales are:
Amazon
Newegg
Ebay
The report claims that the cyber Monday sale is the largest ever. This is incorrect for online sales. Although this year's cyber Monday is expected to bring in 1.5 Billion in sales, this is far less than the 3.1 Billion record established on 11/11 this year by Taobao, the largest online retailer in China. Amazon is clearly lagging even far behind Taobao in terms of sales.
As a "former" ebay power seller I can say Ebay Sucks! It's overridden with drop shipped crap that can be found for 30% less on pricewatch, they nickle and dime sellers to death, and there zero chance of calling to get a live body for customer support. Just look at the difference in CEO behavior - Ebay CEO's make millions in pay, Bezos salary is (c) $80K. When I quite selling on ebay, I quite buying there too. If there's anything I need to sell around the house, craigslist does for me.
Last time I checked, yeah, Amazon does have incredible infrastructure, I mean, when they go down, half the internet goes down. I can only imagine that they eat their own AWS dog food.
Because the other big online retailers (Best Buy, Target, Walmart ) have a physical presence in every state, so they charge sales tax.
Amazon only has physical presence in CA and IN and maybe KY so most customers don't havr yo pay sales tax.
And thats the main reason people shop online instead of locally.
I think Amazon's search and sorting functionality is intentionally crippled. Try sorting by price and you will see a range of products at a range of prices. Is it sorted by new price, used price, price + shipping? Who knows.
Often I have to go to another online store to find the product I want, to then see if it is on amazon. When it comes to books, I usually find the books cheaper on EBay than Amazon (and without tax :) ). The free shipping is a gimmick to get people to accept their higher prices.
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.
why would I continue to buy from amazon and pay sales tax and some times shipping when I can buy else where and pay no sales tax? They should have fought harder to stop that.
I do not trust EBAY as far as I can throw Paypal.
I cannot imagine buying anything over impulse purchase prices on ebay.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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.
They aren't snobs. They cater to a wide range of tastes and budgets. Your money is green enough for them even if you are running a netbook.
This likely explains their dominance.
It's Amazon, not Apple.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
....they want that joke back.
Oddly, they also seem to target their profit at 0%.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
> is the direct result of their exploitation of greedy customers who ignore their home state's sales and use tax laws.
Nope. It's lame local stores. They can't compete even if price is completely taken out of the equation. This is the real disadvantage that any store with a finite location suffers from.
It's harder to have EVERYTHING.
ANY e-commerce site can cater to the entire planet while being in a single physical location. The same used to be true of Sears. Amazon is just a very successful successor to Sears.
They will even refer you to 3rd parties when you want something even they don't have.
Plus Amazon is still cheaper (even with sales tax) on those things for which a direct comparison can even be made.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
... to lookup product information and prices. Usually when searching for any given product amazon will have reviews/info on said product.
Oh, you had to turn this into a class war. While most companies would love to sell just a few high priced items, most cannot do that and instead sell as much of anything that they can. If you can't tell by the huge selection, amazon is on the other end of the spectrum from those high priced vendors. They are volume movers.
You may not know it, but there are settings to filter results by stuff like discounted by 90%, 50%, etc. I just bought a car charger for my iPhone for 90 cents. You can sell 300000 of these things, or one lamborghini. Amazon would like to sell you both.
They could do even better if 9 out of 10 products they sell didn't spit out "We are unable to ship to your address" for Canadian buyers. I am all but given up shopping on Amazon for that reason... they can't even provide a way to filter out items they can't ship to you!
Bow before me, for I am root.
To their folly, hitherto many states have let Amazon and other online sites sell things tax free. While making a consumer's dollar go farther, it sucked tax money away from said states (although perhaps those states got kick-backs from Amazon) and cannibalized competing local businesses. (Granted, local business might include not-locally-based chains or franchises like Best Buy, but that's its own problem. Regardless, local business = local jobs.) Then you've got the issue of strip-mall USA where a person has to use a couple of gallons worth of gas to get to a store in the first place, which is another thing in Amazon's favor. All that said, I live in Seattle (Amazon's home), in the areas where you can walk everywhere and don't need a car. Things are dense, and there are lots of cool local stores, including a book store I like (Elliott Bay Books, which conveniently sells Google Play Books online and also has its own, independent cafe) and a couple of record stores. I would rather pay more for goods from these stores because they give Seattle the feel of a neighborhood (or a collection of neighborhoods, as it were). I can accept that bookstores and record stores are on their way out (as are the physical mediums of books and CDs), but I'm uncomfortable with the concentrating of SOOOOOOO much business through one supplier's gateway. Thus, it's always a bit weird to hear of people BUYING BUYING BUYING. Chill out, consume less, and think about where your dollar is going, rather than just trying to amass shit for you and yours. At least this is the mantra I tell myself.
They make it up on volume.
I guess they are going for the home run, get every other retailer to go out of business, then jack up the prices.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
It does not. It's more expensive and has about 1% of the products that are available on Amazon.com, the difference is even worse than it is between US and Canadian Netflix-es.
Bow before me, for I am root.
Must be another one of those "Tax the Rich" concepts. Only, it's the middle class that pays it.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
I think it was the other way round. Amazon back in the day while building their data centers had to provision for peak load (i.e. thanksgiving). So for the rest of the year they have all this infrastructure sitting around doing nothing. This is a problem faced by a lot of companies which have seasonal demand. Amazon solved it best by renting out that excess compute/storage capacity as AWS.
Last I heard Newegg was 1.4 billion in sales & that was a few years ago. What is Shopzilla doing on that list?
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
Maybe it was just buried, but its hard to believe not ONE of you remembered Stallman's comments on Amazon:
http://stallman.org/amazon.html
I bought an item from Amazon two weeks ago and today, on "Cyber Monday", the price is two dollars higher than I paid. Glad I bought it earlier!
Know your prices and start shopping way before Cyber Monday. You just may be paying higher than every day prices.
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.
What rubbish. Amazon are a high volume, low cost seller if ever there was one. They don't get 14% of internet traffic by selling custom painted Lamborghinis and Rolex watches crafted from unobtanium.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Seriously, do people have that many casual so-called friends who buy them presents regularly that they need to maintain an online database of stuff they'd like because it's too much trouble to actually talk to them about it?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I do not trust EBAY as far as I can throw Paypal.
Many of us have never had a problem with paypal. Maybe we're just lucky, or maybe we're just scrupulous and so we don't run afoul of them. In fact, Paypal has been considerably better to me than my credit card company. My bank refused to process a denial of funds for me in a case of fraud. Paypal, not so much.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I guess they are going for the home run, get every other retailer to go out of business, then jack up the prices.
At least in the UK Amazon are seldom the cheapest for anything, except silly offers like the current Kindle Fire for 99 quid.
In general people here use them for their convenience and no-quibble customer services.
Amazon UK are cheapest for games usually. COD:Black Ops 2 is on Amazon for £37, Game are selling it for £45.
Both the summary and the article refer to amazon's 14% as being nearly 2x ebay's 8.8%. Can we expect a little more numeracy here please? Especially when the numbers in question are the *primary focus* of the article? 14 is 59% greater than 8.8. Imagine: "Wow, you got it for $100? I paid almost twice that, $159!"