Think it ever occurs to Amazon or Walmart to ponder over who exactly they are going to sell to when the lower and middle class are no longer capable of buying their stuff?
The long term strategy here (assuming there even is one beyond a qtrly return) appears fatally flawed when played out over the medium/long term.
That’s what I’ve been a saying about automation.
No workforce, no consumers, no customers, no companies.
I’m waiting for revelations that Bezos has a secret lobbying group for universal basic income.
Heh. The wealthy are using leftists as stalking horses for UBI. But they know it’s coming. It’s kind of a plutocratic wet dream. A subject, non-working class who don’t even have the power to withhold their labor because their labor is no longer needed.
If Trump is the beginning of the end of the USA brand of Democracy, would UBI be the middle of the end?
Perhaps. Or perhaps it would signify that the end has long since come.
Amazon doesn’t make money from selling things, it makes money off of AWS. Selling things is still a loss leader for them AFAIK, albeit a loss leader that gives them a LOT of power in other ways (such as developing the Kindle, which cannibalizes their book sales, but gets them far, far more money now, I’d say).
I think product sales are no longer a loss leader for Amazon, though I have no data at hand to support this. I believe they make money in some sectors and lose in others and basically break even or make a little. But they were the ones who pioneered the ludicrous revenue-based corporate valuation approach back in the day. And they did it in essence by selling things that cost them $1 for $0.75.
Correct - basically Amazon is profitable in the US, loses money abroad, and makes a shitload off of AWS.
I remember reading a while back that both Amazon and Costco have their net profits almost completely tracked to their membership dues (Prime in Amazon’s case)- i.e. they don’t make much of anything on the actual products they sell/shipping, but they make it in your ability to buy it from them. May have been false, and it may have changed since then, though.
probably true as of 2015. 2016 was the first year where the core business became profitable
AWS still requires companies to purchase their services and companies require customers.
And companies are hiring AWS-staff (at far higher rates than bookstore staff), and just about every internet startup is using AWS, and so it is also creating jobs. Better paying jobs, for the most part (though I won’t necessarily say better jobs, as I think working in a bookstore would be fun, if not lucrative).
The other thing is that if Amazon wasn’t doing this, someone else would be, just as Borders, Crown and Barnes and Noble killed a ton of smaller, independent bookstores in the 90’s.
The problem isn’t that someone or other is putting up ebookstores and/or high-efficiency delivery services.
The problem is that there’s only one company that has almost all the market share for both sectors. If Google, Apple, Powells, et al. had competitive services the loss of B&N wouldn’t be nearly as big a deal. If there were good chain or independent brick and mortar stores in most cities it wouldn’t be a problem either. But most towns don’t have bookstores at all outside B&N, and most cities only have specialty stores or used stores, nothing like a reasonable marketplace for books currently in print like B&N.
I’m not sure that AWS is actually creating jobs. There are plenty of AWS jobs popping up everywhere, but I suspect that they’d be appearing even if AWS wasn’t around – the business need for all those sites and e-commerce stuff would still be there.
And AWS is in its own way a consolidation technology. They’re probably putting a lot of “traditional” hosting and data-center folks out of business the same way Walmart drove the mom-and-pop stores under. AWS jobs are better-paying right now because it’s still kind of a new tech, but I suspect that after a transition period, the new AWS positions will pay about the same or less as a Linux or Solaris sysadmin gets today.
(full disclosure, I have AWS developer and architect certifications… haven’t used 'em yet though)
Being a book store retail employee is only slightly less tedious that any other retail clerk. Retail pretty much sucks no matter what.
but books…all around you. Next to working in a large wine shop I can’t imagine a better atmosphere. :)
Yeah, that plus an employee discount on those books plus cool coworkers plus some kinds of customers that make retail awful stay out of the store because they don’t read… that helps make it more bearable, even enjoyable. Even though it’s still hard, low-paying retail work, and you get the feeling that the real reason for the store is to provide a place for homeless people to go to the bathroom.
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/barnes-and-noble/n12698
Yes, there are considerably fewer shitheads walking into a bookstore than a 7-Eleven.
CEO Demos Parneros will not be paid severance and will be removed from the board immediately, the bookstore chain said late Tuesday.
The company did not announce a reason for the firing. It said only that the CEO was not let go because of any disagreement about “financial reporting, policies or practices or any potential fraud relating thereto.”
The company also reaffirmed its profit guidance for the current fiscal year. A spokesperson had no further comment.
Barnes & Noble (BKS) said it would begin looking for a new CEO. In the meantime, a leadership group, including the chief financial officer, will handle the CEO’s duties.
Given the current environment, my first assumption is he was banging interns in a broom closet. But for all I know it was an argument over parking spots.
