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Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

For me, Amazon is a long way off from threatening my local supermarket and other local retailers.

Would I buy clothes from Amazon? No, I like to try them on first. Returning stuff by mail is a pain.

Would I buy expensive home furnishings from Amazon? No, I like to see, touch, try these things before I spend a lot of money.

Would I buy perishable groceries from Amazon? No, because deliveries happen when I'm at work and I don't want perishable food sitting in the sun for three hours on my front porch.

Do I buy toilet paper from Amazon? No, because it's easier to pick it up at the store when I'm there for something else anyway, than to get it delivered and then have to deal with disposing of the cardboard box it came in.

And with anything Amazon, I'm worried about counterfeit goods.

So what do I buy from Amazon? Inexpensive, low risk, low margin goods, and the occasional book.

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Then your Amazon buying habits roughly match what mine once were - but that’s far from how a lot of people I live amongst use Amazon. I come home to my apartment every day to find Amazon vans prowling the neighborhood delivering groceries (a year ago, I had never seen one, now they are literally everywhere) and piles upon piles of Amazon boxes in my apartment lobby. I know plenty of people who buy almost everything on Amazon, short of clothing, gas, and meals they eat away from home.

    > And with anything Amazon, I'm worried
    > about counterfeit goods.

They need to get on this; they've lost ~ a thousand dollars from me this year that I've spent in previous years where I'm worried about if I'll get the real thing or not.

However:

    > Would I buy clothes from Amazon?

There's plenty of stuff I don't need to try on though. All undergarments and many shoes and pants where I know what I want already I get from Amazon.

    > Would I buy perishable groceries
    > from Amazon?

I used to buy everything from Ocado when I lived in London. I'd have rather bought it from Amazon, and when they can (and maybe that's now, I'm living in Asia right now) schedule deliveries like the other supermarkets, I'll switch.

I think it (may!) also depend on where you are located:

- If you are located in a suburban / semi-rural with more stores around, you may be less likely to use Amazon - If you are in a very rural / urban area, you may be more likely to use Amazon

Of course it'd probably be hard/impossible to find, but I'd like to be able to see a map of customers/purchases on Amazon in relation to urban and other areas.

There are some things I shop exclusively online. With other things, experience has been a good teacher; I've learned to shop for them in-store.

Like clothes. The experience is invariably better in stores than online. Amazon might offer better selection but I see that as a negative; I don't want to spend 2 hours just trying to find the right pair of jeans from 2,000 variants.

The margins on retail goods are tiny. If your local shop loses 20% of its business to a competitor it closes (or pivots). This isn't about whether or not you shop on Amazon; it's about whether or not you have any choice if enough other people shop there.

>Do I buy toilet paper from Amazon? No, because it's easier to pick it up at the store

I get toilet paper on Amazon subscription. I don't even need to think about buying toilet paper, it's already there when I need it.

"Would I buy expensive home furnishings from Amazon? No, I like to see, touch, try these things before I spend a lot of money."

I imagine AR might convince people otherwise.

In fact it does. We've seen 2% purchase lift on home furnishings with our AR.

But come on, toilet paper, socks, clothes hangers, pancake mix—which are all small pieces of those other industries—are inexpensive, low risk, and low margin goods.

> Returning stuff by mail is a pain

for now.

lol exactly. eventually, it will be as simple as a single click to schedule a pickup at a time of your choice.

Amazon delivers food in slots of 1 hour whenever you want.

You're a dying breed though. Every trend is moving away from your status quo.

Also, depending on where you are many people's "local super market" is Whole Foods - so yes Amazon literally "threatens" a large percentage of the US' local supermarket.

Whole foods has 1.2% market share.

Doesn't matter, they are in every major market. Which means Amazon Fulfillment Centers (What Whole Foods really is now) "threaten" everything around them.

[1] http://fortune.com/2017/06/16/amazon-whole-foods-stores-loca...

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