Million plus Square Foot Dist Center in KCK

[FangKC]

Article discusses how Amazon is displacing American workers, hurting local retail businesses, and depressing wages.

Amazon’s Takeover Of The Economy Is The Real Threat To American Jobs

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ama ... n=politics

[brewcrew1000]

Article discusses how Amazon is displacing American workers, hurting local retail businesses, and depressing wages.

Amazon’s Takeover Of The Economy Is The Real Threat To American Jobs

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ama ... n=politics

Couldn't this article have been written 20 years ago you could have replaced Amazon with Walmart? The only threat I really see Amazon to is urban areas with walkable retail/grocery. What would be the point of walking to a chocolate shop 2 blocks away in a neighborhood in Chicago if you can have an Amazon drone deliver it in 30 minutes and it costs 1 dollar less? The chocolate shop ends up closing, the people who own the chocolate shop probably live in the neighborhood so they have to move to possibly a place that is less expensive and what we have is even more people spread out in suburbia.

[earthling]

Yeah if Amazon is replacing another national retailer there is no net difference in terms of hurting small biz. National retailers have been replacing neighborhood/locatarian places for decades. As far as jobs, it's simply the nature of more efficient ways of doing biz. The upside is that Amazon, Ebay, etc allow for specialty product makers to get their product elsewhere w/out needing a national distributor. The 'green' impact is probably greater if anything. Shipping individual items to every possible address by truck is much less efficient, which drone delivery may eventually help with.

The labor force will have to adapt to new ways of doing biz, not force biz to do things the old way just to save an antiquated job type. Get your kids into the sciences if possible - there are so many jobs in the STEM direction that we have to import workers from India, and the pay is better. Or for creative types, learn how to use technology or new biz models to get your creativity out there. IE, musicians no longer need a major label to get works out broadly. Adapt or you won't survive, at least if in one of the fast changing industries.

BTW, I have an idea for somewhat more secure drone delivery in some cases (probably already in the works). You subscribe to drone delivery service first and sent a 'beacon pad' to where you want the drone to place the package for all future deliveries. So it finds the address and then targets the pad with a unique ID (like RFID) where you want the package delivered, which may be a relatively secure patio/balcony, backyard or apt courtyard or rooftop you have easy access to, etc. Then get a text as soon as it's dropped off, and maybe even a text an hour before delivery, then 5 min beforehand.

[flyingember]

Compare Walmart to Amazon, since they're both huge multinational general product stores.

Walmart obviously replaced many local shops. You can find an example in every town where a store closed down because walmart moved into town and started selling similar stock.

Amazon has done much of the same but with one difference. While walmart hurt the local economy of places Amazon's marketplace feature allows a smart retailer to grow their business more than any local shop ever could have and they don't need to get a walmart to stock their product. The ability to live in a small town and sell to anywhere is the major difference.

There's obviously a risk that someone can undercut you, but that was already happening.

[brewcrew1000]

Or the Amazon Marketplace can do this to you
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-co ... 07731.html

The Amazon Marketplace is an unregulated mess. I would never ever buy Shampoo or Products from marketplace sellers because you have no clue what you are getting. You could be getting premium shampoo cut with 60% Vo5. Same with shoes and clothes, there are tons of counterfeits out there.

[flyingember]

That's nothing unique to any market.

Their issue is the lack of a method to kick our abusive sellers than it happening to them being special.

Even being sold in a store doesn't give any assurance it's real product. This happened to established, smart retaillers.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... mical.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/femalefashiona ... x_today_i/

They could randomly review product entering their warehouses for fulfilled by Amazon based on certain flags like ratings, number of returns, complaints, location, age of account and such. That at least would help with this aspect of the business.

[brewcrew1000]

That's nothing unique to any market.

Their issue is the lack of a method to kick our abusive sellers than it happening to them being special.

Even being sold in a store doesn't give any assurance it's real product. This happened to established, smart retaillers.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... mical.html
https://www.reddit.com/r/femalefashiona ... x_today_i/

They could randomly review product entering their warehouses for fulfilled by Amazon based on certain flags like ratings, number of returns, complaints, location, age of account and such. That at least would help with this aspect of the business.

Did you see the Trago Mill and B&M website. They look like a Cargo Largo/Big Lots mismash, of course they are going to have fake and expired stuff because they probably just buy stuff at bulk prices and resell it.
Also, did you read the Reddit, they said that scammers would buy real bags, return them but swap them out with the fake bags then TJ Maxx or Ross would be on the hook for the fake bags. Its not like TJ Maxx or Ross was buying an entire supply of fakes and selling it to the public, the people returning the stuff screwed the companies over.

[FangKC]

I guess we should stop building retail spaces into new buildings then. There is no point in wanting an Urban Target downtown if it's obsolete.

[earthling]

I guess we should stop building retail spaces into new buildings then. There is no point in wanting an Urban Target downtown if it's obsolete.

If this new Amazon physical store method takes off, Target may be obsolete. Would you rather have this downtown or Target? No lines, no cashier. Likely to start with low cost items at first but could build up to anything...

http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-g ... eo-2016-12

https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011

Of course if it takes off, traditional stores could develop a similar system.

[flyingember]

There's two trends in retail. 1. keep stock low and 2. keep shipping cheap.

Apparently Toys r Us is stocking more stuff in store this Christmas. Imagine it's a less poplar toy they stock 1-2 of because they sell once every other month. Person X buys it in KC to ship. They can pack it from a KC store and pay less for shipping and restock the store on the next truck that has space. Or they can stock 100x of something in the store knowing they'll sell 50 in person and 40 online. During slow middle of the day the retail staff also does fulfillment. So they can afford to hire plenty of retail staff for weekends to reduce theft and improve customer service.

So for Target vs Amazon it's all about warehouse placement and ordering systems. Whoever can minimize on hand stock and bring in product quicker will have the upper hand.

Target needs to add warehouses and run stores more lean, to be able to scale down and offer more in store services, not just buy it here and now.
Amazon knows how to ship quick to most people so it needs to figure out retail that isn't a big box.

We will see ship from store, ship to store, ship from warehouse, ship to secure locker where it's all one brand as the norm over time. I should be able to buy from a website or walk into store and place a custom order and they pick the method that gets to me quickest based on what I paid for delivery and where it's being delivered. For something normally requiring a signature having a 24x7 spot I can pickup from would be very nice at a minimum.