Amazon wants to add an online food store to their inventory. By doing so, they will enter in competition with other services such as Pea Pod. However, with Amazons current popularity and American Dependency on the Internet, I think Amazon might actually profit. “Prime” is now a major competitor of Amazon. However, because of “Prime’s” inventory, they are able to ship cheaper, holding the upper hand in control of both company’s profit margins. As a result, Amazon raised prices in order to match “Primes” prices. Amazon also has a huge impact on related industries such as gas, local shops, and public mailing. If Americans are buying everything online, they are depriving the small local businesses. This also means that the gas and travel isn’t necessary. In contrast lower gas usage means that the goods need to find an alternative method of reaching its customers, meaning UPS gets a lot of business, upping the UPS shipping companies. -Chelsea Gaulin
3 comments:
Keep in mind amazon still can't ship perishable goods, while many other businesses can. That could really wreck the whole service. I'm curious about how succesfull the online grocery business will be, though. I know my family used one at one point, and it was really nice to just be able to log on no the family account and add whatever groceries I wanted. However, we haven't done that in awhile, as the service went out of businesses pretty quickly. Amazon may be able to support a grocery business because it has a huge amount of other services to fall back on; still, I wouldn't be suprised if by this time next year Amazon announces its plan to cancel its grocery service.
I think people enjoy going the market and can actually see first hand what their buying. They can inspect their produce and they can also get the goods as soon as they need them at virtually any time. I also think that a lot of people are not web savy enough to log and creat an account and buy their food online. I also think these companies make themselves vulnerable because if one person dies for instance as a result of something happening to their food, they could easily sue the carrier. I also dont like the idea of having my food being left in the back of a truck being thrown around all day and then finally making it to my door. If I want a bag of chips its not like im going to log online and have a bag of chips delivered the next day. I also think that because amazon isnt a big grocery chain people will tend to shy away from using them because they want a name they can trust in the marketing area.
As Josh said people like to see what they are buying first hand. I think the main reason online shopping wont be that popular is that when people go to a supermarket they usually have some sort of list, but they usually buy other things that they need that they simply forgot. While food shopping online you are very limited and one has to absolutely know what they are going to buy. There is such a vast variety of products that a supermarket sells and I just dont see how amazon would have the space and business to supply people if online grocery shopping got popular
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