Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
The problem for retailers in general is that online shopping is not a totally different market. Catalog shopping is far different to shopping on Amazon, particularly for a Prime member. Catalog shopping here and I understand in the US complemented the business of those retailers offering it. It was before my time, but I understand that at least in NSW the catalog business was dominated by Marcus Clark, a now long defunct Department Store. I believe Sears dominated the trade in the US. You can of course regard, say, Amazon's website as a glorifed catalog if you like. But if so, todays "catalog" sales are direct and often vicious competitors, in Amazon's case taking a large chunk of the market. The appeal of the convenience, sheer variety, discounted prices and the quick and cheap or "free" delivery does not just appeal to rural customers.
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Sears and Montgomery Ward were the two biggest department store/catalog vendors but in the US (Radio Shack and Lafayette also did big business in the mail order business) but there were dozens if not hundreds of mail order-only vendors ranging from the likes of Spiegle and Fingerhut, to JC WHITNEY.
The latter quietly became an integral part of the economy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/JC_Whitney
Amazon is a direct successor to the mail order vendors which in tbe 80's and 90's were a such cornerstone of the PC revolution that users would buy their monthly 800 page monster magazine for the ads rather than the nominal content. If it was PC related it was there.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comp...r_(US_magazine)
Given the timing it is almost a certainty pre-NY Bezos knew of the shopper and used it either in high school or college. Ditto for JC Whitney. So tbe idea of starting a "catalog" business on the emerging internet in the mid 90's was no act of genius. Dozens were doing it. Hundreds to thousands by the turn of the century.
What distinguishes Amazon isn't what it does or even how it does it (they are hardly the first or only company playing the startup long game of using one product line to fund the creation of another) but rather their scale. Bezos' game is much bigger than retail or even building a conglomerate. Much like Musk, his corporate deals exist as cash generating stepping stones to fund his true long terms goal.
But where Musk thinks he's close enough to show his hand (Mars) Bezos is still playing his cards close to the vest. Maybe he wants to be
D.D. Harriman, maybe he wants the asteroid belt. We'll have to wait and see what he is really up to.
But Amazon isn't the goal of his ambitions, it's just a tool to generate the billions upon billions he needs for his real goal much as Musk is using SpaceX and StarLink. 20 years from now people will laugh at all the angst over such a piddly thing as retail.
Those boys are playing a much bigger game that is just starting.