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Amazon "Invades" College Campus With Media Center (businessinsider.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the everything-campus dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Amazon opened its first media center on a college campus, including couches, conference tables and TVs with game controllers, as well as a full-time Amazon staffer and a package pickup station. Since 40% of the boxes delivered to Penn are from Amazon, it will be installed in one of the dining halls, according to CNET, offering Amazon Prime members same-day or next-day delivery for more than 3 million items, from textbooks to toothpaste. Amazon already has pickup points on five college campuses, and hopes to add five more by the end of the year, in an effort to compete with 748 college bookstores run by Barnes and Noble.
One analyst told CNET, "They just want to hook you when you're 20."

11 of 59 comments (clear)

  1. Not a surprise by jbmartin6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One analyst told CNET, "They just want to hook you when you're 20."? Hardly a difficult piece of analysis. I'm sure any business would like to "hook" people of any sort.

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    This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    1. Re:Not a surprise by WarJolt · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I'm surprised only 40% of packages come from Amazon. Students are already hooked. I'd imagine most of the other 60% comes from clothing stores that refuse to market through Amazon and I'm sure Amazon has a plan to assimilate them.

    2. Re: Not a surprise by GoodNewsJimDotCom · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In the 80s and 90s, Apple was in all the schools with donated computers. Seemed to work out pretty well for them.

      --
      God spoke to me
    3. Re:Not a surprise by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "They just want to hook you when you're 20."

      As does Apple, who sells their computers on campus at 10-20% less than retail.

      As does Microsoft, who routinely gives much of their software away for free to students.

      As does Google, who offers Google Apps for Education to pretty much any college that wants it.

      As does every cereal manufacturer - no, wait, they're trying to hook you while you're still a little kid.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    4. Re:Not a surprise by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Informative

      Sounds like the book publishers and their complicit teachers merely didn't manage to plug the used book loophole in your particular case.

      Usually, the only difference between textbook editions is that they shuffle and renumber the problems at the end of each chapter. So you borrow the latest edition from a friend, and photocopy the problem sets. Then you can use the old book for learning, and the photocopies for homework.

    5. Re:Not a surprise by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      the system only works so long as no-one actually achieves dominance.

      Amazon has no lock on the market. If another site offers products 2% cheaper, people will switch. Amazon undercuts their competition through cost control and economy of scale, not through monopoly power.

  2. Exclusivity by Alwin+Henseler · · Score: 2

    A package pickup point? Like mobile phone antennas: more useful the more there are. Preferably nearby.

    But one that exclusively caters to one company X? Not good. Sure, a big % of packages may be theirs. But what about the rest? And who's to say where company X will be in a couple of years? If it only does 10% of packages by then, pickup point for company X wouldn't be so useful anymore. A shared pickup point for <any companies' shipments> would be, though.

    So summary has it right. Smells a lot like "hook 'em while they're young". Not to mention fair competition considerations...

  3. "They just want to hook you when you're 20." by Black+Parrot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Unlike all the fast-food outlets and vending machines all over most campuses, and the businesses and Scientologists competing for the real estate right across the street.

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    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
    1. Re:"They just want to hook you when you're 20." by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

      20? That's leaving it a bit late.

      Yours sincerely,
          The Jesuits.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  4. Flame/click bait? by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Invades"? "They want to hook you"? Really?

    How is this different from any other retailer that opens up a shop on or near campus? An "invasion" implies that they're unwelcome interlopers forcing themselves in. If 40% of the packages coming into the school are already being ordered from Amazon, it's more like a significant portion of the student body has invited them in. And invoking the tobacco industry is sleazy sensationalism, and totally un-called for. They're not pushing an addictive and deadly drug onto an unwitting populace. They're providing a more convenient way to buy stuff you'd be buying anyway.

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    Imagine all the people...
  5. Re:Success! by ShooterNeo · · Score: 2

    Amazon, by any reasonable metric, IS succeeding. Many of their businesses make more than adequate profit margins (especially their cloud business), and Amazon's business strategy is to grow into as many markets as possible and to take advantage of vertical integration. Amazon is effectively the publisher, the store, and the printing press when they sell you self published books to read on your kindle. They even effectively are the designers of that printing press - they write the Amazon PC software, design the hardware of the kindles, and all the web software and servers.

    Similarly, when they sell groceries, they are both the distributor and the store.

    Having multiple huge warehouses is a compromise - apparently, at their scale, they save more in reduced shipping costs to individual buyers than the losses from having to stock multiple warehouses with the same item pool.