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0 pointsineedasername4y ago0 comments

There's been a fair bit written about how Walmart leveraged incredible logistics to achieve its retail dominance, not unlike Amazon doing the same in the online world. I've also come across interesting work on how Dell helped change consumer computing with Just in Time supply chains.

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jcims4y ago

Anybody that worked at Walmart in the 80’s and 90’s saw unprecedented application of technology to retail operations. Even as a lowly stock boy i could see how the efficiencies and cost savings gave them a huge advantage over their competition.

Scoundreller4y ago

Kinda makes you wonder if Dell (or Gateway?) could have become Amazon as they sold people stuff direct, possibly their first web browser, and never put two and two together about what else could be done with that beyond their next computer.

dzhiurgis4y ago

IMO Amazon makes money by selling counterfeits.

ineedasernameOP4y ago

That's a bit of a separate issue from their massively efficient logistics network.

yjftsjthsd-h4y ago

Probably, but could overlap if you believe that they got ahead by cutting corners; I imagine that their practice of commingling inventory nets them a nice improvement in efficiency while making the counterfeiting issue worse.

smabie4y ago

You think Amazon would not be profitable if there were no counterfeits?

throwaway_kufu4y ago

Isn’t true they never turned a profit until AWS?

I wonder if the online marketplace by it self still doesn’t turn profit. Probably impossible to figure out with additions of services like Prime and Amazon Fresh.

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ericbarrett4y ago

Amazon's retail business (amazon.com) isn't even the majority of its revenue anymore.

ketzo4y ago

I looked this up just to make sure — it definitely, definitely is the majority of their revenue. Net sales on Amazon.com for Q1 2021 were $75 billion. AWS and “other” combined were $19 billion. [1]

As far as profit goes, you have a stronger argument — $6 billion vs. $4 billion for AWS alone. AWS has a 30% operating margin, jesus.

[1] page 19 of https://s2.q4cdn.com/299287126/files/doc_financials/2021/q1/...

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