Amazon Scout

For most sellers and a growing number of traditional businesses, Amazon is so big, so much the default place people go to shop, that they find ways to tolerate constant sabotage as just another cost of doing business. In a sense, the chaos of the platform fuels its own growth.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/19/18140799/amazon-marketplace-scams-seller-court-appeal-reinstatement

Employees at Amazon's logistics centers in Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom are on strike today, the day of Black Friday - a commercial operation that weighs heavily in the turnover of the online retail giant - for challenge their working conditions. In Germany, about 620 people are involved in this protest movement, mainly in the warehouses of Bad Hersfeld and Rheinberg. Amazon's local representatives told reporters that most of the employees continue to work and that the strike would ultimately have very little impact on deliveries

“As a result of customer feedback, from 22 November Amazon customers will be able to ship eligible items from amazon.com to Australian delivery addresses,”

For now it is temporary thing, as end goal is to become No1 in Australia via their local warehouses and site.

It is rumors that Amazon stand behind government decision to lower customs free imports by two times (to $500 AUD) and later further reduce this sum. Amazon use corruption and bribes to cut Chinese big competitors.

Ron T. Kim is a New York state assemblyman who represents parts of Queens.

CO: Mr. Kim when you first heard confirmation that Amazon had landed on Long Island City as one of the sites of their new headquarters, what came to mind?

RON KIM: I was stunned by the numbers that were cited today in the agreement that the governor and the mayor had come to -- almost two billion dollars of taxpayers money that they agreed to give to the richest man on the planet. I was shocked.

CO: A lot of places wanted to be in your shoes, wanted to be the place -- you know how many municipalities, how many cities, competed for this. So what's wrong with what you got?

RK: I mean I think that in itself is also very shocking that we've allowed this super monopoly mega corporation to really manipulate the system and pit cities against each other. And at the end of the day it isn't a full-fledged headquarters as they promised. This was merely just an expansion. And I think the cities and the states -- they've given up so much of their time, energy, and data for a private company like Amazon and the return on the investment that's going to come out of these billions of dollars -- every economist and research have proven that there's absolutely no statistical correlation between economic growth and job growth with these type of subsidy programs.

CO: The wealthiest man in the world you're referring to is Jeff Bezos of Amazon. So is it any corporation, any large corporation, that would be setting up in this way or is it Amazon and Jeff Bezos that you think is something that is not healthy, is not useful, to your community?

RK: Yeah I mean we've had other tech companies come in and they're not asking for any subsidies. They come in and they compete. They pay market value to set up their shop including Google and Facebook. They didn't receive a single dime from the city in New York. But Jeff Bezos -- their business model has always been to figure out how to pit people against each other. Pit customers. Pit cities. Pit politicians -- against each other and really exploit the market and that's the core of their business model. They are a super monopoly company that have become the market. They don't just control the market, they become the market. And it is completely unhealthy for our democracy and our ability to compete and helping small businesses and entrepreneurs in places like Queens.

full audio interview ( starts at 26:58 )

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-tuesday-edition-1.4903336

Amazon's adoption of Kiva robots for sorting merchandise items at warehousing centers has proved to be more efficient than conventional labor-assisted sorting, according to Amazon Solution Architecture instructor Young Yang at AWS Transformation Day taking place in Taipei on October 16.

Since Amazon acquired US-based Kiva Systems in 2012 and renamed it as Amazon Robotics, Kiva robots have been upgraded to the 8th generation, which is smarter by using AI (artificial intelligence)-based algorithms, Yang said.

For a single warehousing center, the use of Kiva robots has hiked efficiency from a daily peak level of handling 700,000 merchandise items originally to 1.5 million, Yang said. At the same time, a worker can handle 300 items for delivery an hour, thrice the original level, at an accuracy level of 99.99%.

Bezos’ Decision to Raise Wages is Largely a Machiavellian Distraction

This is how Bezos rolls, he’s willing to take short-term hits to dominate a market. What sacrifice is a wage hike if he assumes everyone else will have to do it as well? He knows Amazon’s got the resources and capability to automate in a way others simply can’t. Bezos see this as a win-win if he can also get everyone to pay $15 an hour. He gets to look like a leader, while also positioning Amazon for even greater market dominance in the long-run. You really think Bezos is advocating for a national minimum wage increase because he’s suddenly a Bernie Sanders populist? Don’t be stupid.

https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2018/10/02/bezos-decision-to-rasie-wages-is-largely-a-machiavellian-distraction/

And back to reality

Wish more people knew this or could get more attention on this. Have many family members who work at Amazon and they lost a lot yesterday. They were already @ $15 or above (most are at their facility), but lost all incentive and stock programs. They'll make $3-6k less per yr now.

Of course they try to defend

We can confirm that all hourly Operations and Customer Service employees will see an increase in their total compensation as a result of this announcement. In addition, because it’s no longer incentive-based, the compensation will be more immediate and predictable.

Amazon briefly reached a market cap of over $1 trillion earlier today, becoming the second US-based company to cross the mark after Apple.

Amazon could reach 50% market share in 2018

Want to join TV business

Amazon is preparing the next phase of its pay-TV attack on Sky with plans to unleash its own smart television set and elbow its way into more homes.

The television, developed alongside a group of Chinese manufacturers including Huawei, is being confidentially tested by DTG, the industry body that maintains Britain’s digital terrestrial broadcast technical standards.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2018/07/14/amazon-targets-sky-smart-tv/

I guess that when burning through all that wal street and VC money, you miss a few things, like maximizing package space