Due to my general lack of patience, I was a late arrival to shopping with Amazon. With the zeal of a convert I am convinced that this is the way people will shop in the near future. It is just a superior way to buy things, especially if you hate shopping or fighting the Malthusian crowds. Anything not needed immediately can be ordered online. For any trip to the grocery store or a place like Wal-mart or Target, a certain percentage of items will be non-perishable. Most of these items are already available via Amazon. Amazon has also recently started delivering fresh groceries in select cities.
As a business, I think Amazon could grow to eclipse even Wal-mart. Sure, anyone can sell products online, but Amazon just does it better. Also, with an online model they need fewer facilities (lower overhead) and fewer employees than their bricks and mortar counterparts. The retailers deliver goods to you and you ship them to your customers via UPS. No truck fleets to manage, no shoplifting, no fancy stores with big electricity bills, etc. Pure sales. For customers, you get a good deal and often no sales tax unless you’re in the same state as an Amazon facility where they must collect sales tax. With no sales tax, this is an automatic 6-8% discount.
Amazon Prime is a good example of this superior approach to retail. With Amazon Prime, you pay $80 a year for super cheap shipping. This is a great deal if you use Amazon frequently. As an Amazon Prime member you get free two-day shipping and $3.99 per item for overnight shipping.
Amazon Prime is also genius for a few reasons:
- When you join Amazon Prime, you buy a whole lot more. With free two-day shipping and super cheap overnight shipping, you can order something and have it the next day, which is tough to resist.
- Amazon Prime also trains you to buy more exclusively from Amazon versus from other retailers who offer products on Amazon.com. In addition to selling their own stock, Amazon is a storefront for independent partners who use Amazon as an ecommerce platform. The thing is, if you’re an Amazon Prime member and there are multiple sellers for a particular product, given the choice you will buy from Amazon since only Amazon fulfilled products qualify for the free shipping.