<story><title>Why Amazon is eating the world</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/14/why-amazon-is-eating-the-world/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>resoluteteeth</author><text>&amp;gt; The truth is that each of these is feasible for a large competitor to replicate and it’s reasonable to think that Walmart could build or acquire these capabilities within the next few years. The key component to profitable 2-day (or 1-hour) delivery is the customer’s proximity to a distribution center.&lt;p&gt;This is incredible. Walmart has free two-day shipping on orders over $35 &lt;i&gt;right now&lt;/i&gt;, with &lt;i&gt;no membership required&lt;/i&gt;, and yet people are still writing articles like this asking, &amp;quot;will it be possible for Walmart to get 2 day shipping within the next couple years?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Because of the problems with third party sellers (combining different sellers into the same product page, comingling, fake reviews, etc.) it&amp;#x27;s getting harder and harder to buy stuff on Amazon, plus you need a prime membership to get fast free shipping. I&amp;#x27;ve also had tons of problems with Amazon deliveries since they switched to their own logistics company. In comparison, Walmart is looking better and better by the day.&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t some day in the future, it&amp;#x27;s now. I&amp;#x27;m seriously considering cancelling prime and just using walmart when I need 2 day delivery.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zkanter</author><text>You missed the whole point of my post. I said specifically said Amazon&amp;#x27;s moats have nothing to do with things like 2-day shipping, which are easily copied. The FBA program, as one example, allows &lt;i&gt;any Amazon seller to ship product to Amazon&amp;#x27;s warehouse, and then have that product be eligible for 2-day (or faster) shipping&lt;/i&gt; - with zero effort (and unbeatable fulfillment fees). &lt;i&gt;That&lt;/i&gt; program - and the dozens of others like it - will be extraordinarily difficult to copy.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Amazon is eating the world</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/14/why-amazon-is-eating-the-world/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>resoluteteeth</author><text>&amp;gt; The truth is that each of these is feasible for a large competitor to replicate and it’s reasonable to think that Walmart could build or acquire these capabilities within the next few years. The key component to profitable 2-day (or 1-hour) delivery is the customer’s proximity to a distribution center.&lt;p&gt;This is incredible. Walmart has free two-day shipping on orders over $35 &lt;i&gt;right now&lt;/i&gt;, with &lt;i&gt;no membership required&lt;/i&gt;, and yet people are still writing articles like this asking, &amp;quot;will it be possible for Walmart to get 2 day shipping within the next couple years?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Because of the problems with third party sellers (combining different sellers into the same product page, comingling, fake reviews, etc.) it&amp;#x27;s getting harder and harder to buy stuff on Amazon, plus you need a prime membership to get fast free shipping. I&amp;#x27;ve also had tons of problems with Amazon deliveries since they switched to their own logistics company. In comparison, Walmart is looking better and better by the day.&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t some day in the future, it&amp;#x27;s now. I&amp;#x27;m seriously considering cancelling prime and just using walmart when I need 2 day delivery.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>onion2k</author><text>This is a great example of a challenge that every business faces - if the customer doesn&amp;#x27;t know about your product then it doesn&amp;#x27;t matter how good it is. You can&amp;#x27;t sell to someone if you&amp;#x27;ve failed to communicate your product to them in a way that they understand. In this case Walmart has a product (2 day delivery) that customers don&amp;#x27;t know about, which means Walmart &lt;i&gt;completely fail&lt;/i&gt; to compete with Amazon for customers who want that service.&lt;p&gt;If you can&amp;#x27;t communicate your product well enough to the customer then the product effectively &lt;i&gt;doesn&amp;#x27;t exist&lt;/i&gt; as far as that customer is concerned. This is why sales and marketing are &lt;i&gt;really important&lt;/i&gt; to a startup.</text></comment>