upvote

points

by steve_adams_8623 hours ago |
comments
upvoteby mullingitover23 hours ago|
next
[-]
Amazon largely being a dumb marketplace, a faster-shipping AliExpress/Temu, really makes them easy to drop if you find that shipping speed isn’t super important for those types of products. You can just go straight to the source and cut Amazon out entirely.
reply
upvoteby whatever123 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
It’s not only a faster Temu for e-junk. It can also deliver your paper wipes and bananas in the same order.

Could you just place 3 different orders to 3 different vendors? Sure.

Could you just drive to the grocery for 2 bananas and then to Costco for the big discounted paper wipes? Sure.

But likely you will not. Which is why Amazon pulls a Trillion in revenue.

reply
upvoteby elictronic23 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
When some of your products are fraudulent all your products are fraudulent. Amazon has zero trust from me these days. It’s the equivalent of an overpriced garage sale.
reply
upvoteby satvikpendem22 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
You do you, I and most others don't have issues, hence their revenue.
reply
upvoteby mullingitover21 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
next
[-]
I've tried Amazon for groceries on this line of thinking. Verdict: it's terrible. Their groceries are priced uncompetitively and after a few times having some stranger pick my produce (and doing an offensively bad job of it) I don't do that anymore.

So since I'm 100% definitely going to the grocery store for produce, at minimum, this whole concept fails. May as well pick up the ziploc bags and paper towels as well while I'm there.

reply
upvoteby borski23 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
In Q1 2026, AWS was 60% (roughly) of Amazon’s operating income.

I’m not so sure their retail piece is the part that’s making them big money.

reply
upvoteby whatever123 hours ago|
parent|
next
[-]
If they were targeting 60% margins in grocery they would be bankrupt.

Retail has famously razor thin margins.

But their cash flow came in handy when AWS needed 300B in cash for gpus. Nobody could lend them that amount.

reply
upvoteby borski23 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
I’m familiar with the margins in retail (my parents ran a retail store their entire lives).

My point wasn’t that they don’t do a lot of volume; it’s that their retail business is not what’s driving their profit, and I don’t believe it’s growing.

I wouldn’t be surprised (though have not looked) if DoorDash (with DashMart), Uber Eats (which does more than just food), and Instacart have eaten significantly into Amazon’s revenue by solving the “get it to me” problem even faster.

reply
upvoteby whatever123 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
In the US last mile is super hard because of the super high wages. The only way to work around it is volume per delivery person.

If you do 2 deliveries per hour (like Uber Eats / door dash), you pay essentially $5/order (assuming a super low us wage of $10/hour and no equipment cost/ gas).

So no in the US, Amazon is not threatened by such delivery services.

Now if you go to China, the equation flips. Which is why Amazon failed completely.

reply
upvoteby malfist19 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
Thats the story they tell investors because investors love a growing tech company. But scratch the surface a bit and you see retail shoveling most of it's profit into purchasing AWS.
reply
upvoteby borski18 hours ago|
parent|
[-]
Do you have anything to indicate this? A source or any analysis?
reply
upvoteby ThunderSizzle21 hours ago|
parent|
prev|
[-]
I see this said a lot, but Amazon products I buy actually work (even if the quality of obviously laughable - it actually performs the function and won't break any time soon to justify a 100x price increase for something more...artisan.

The only order I did for temu, everything arrived completely DOA

reply
upvoteby reddit_clone16 hours ago|
prev|
[-]
This is an important point for me. I am too lazy (too much executive dysfunction) to research products. I trust Costco to do the product research and offer us a good quality/price match up.

Return policy is also pain free. You can pretty much return anything you don't like. Just take it back.

They used to have amazingly generous return policy for electronics. Since some people abused it, bit tighter now.

reply