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Comment by dpweb | Hacker News Reader

Products are commodities and they often do not win on price before shipping. Shipping is the secret sauce. Their ability to ship at lower costs.

I used to prefer ebay, prices are better, but after 2day shipping, you cant go back.

I can start an online retailer tomorrow, but i cant ship a package for less than $3. China too. I bought an iphone case for 80 cents, problem there you have to wait 3 weeks but their shipping too also government subsidized.

You wont find any huge corporation that wasnt somehow subsidized with public money.

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> but after 2day shipping, you cant go back

Maybe it's a US-market issue, but I don't understand why Amazon is lauded for two-day shipping as if it is unique.

They don't have any particular delivery logistics genius except bulk-purchase discounts from the carriers.

The 'Amazon Prime' air cargo fleet is leased from an industry-standard cargo airline, nothing unique or exclusive.

And they make silly errors that show how their shipping system works; they won't ship lithium batteries ( or even DSLR cameras ) to Northern Ireland even though they have a logistics warehouse here. Because the inter-warehouse backhaul is via Royal Mail, who won't carry hazardous items.

They made massive capital investments that allowed Amazon to bypass carrier routing.

So they use government subsidy to deliver to expensive addresses (USPS), UPS to handle exceptions, (and to tie up capacity from competitors) and job out delivery to cut rate services whenever possible.

Few other retailers do that. A retailer like Willams Sonoma has one warehouse in northern Mississippi and one in Nevada, close to UPS/Fedex hubs. They probably get 3 day delivery for 50% of orders, but can not commit to anything.

It is pretty unique in the US. Most other vendors will take 5-7 days to get to me in the north east (probably because a lot of imported goods end up warehoused on the west coast).

I don't think too many other online vendors in the US have their own delivery vans/trucks.

Nobody else ships like them in the US.

Getting a product to me from California is 500 more land miles than someone in Rome ordering from Moscow.

As I said in a prior discussion, a broad catalog plus pretty predictable 2-day shipping was a real eye opener for me.

I first got Prime mostly for the video because Netflix had just started charging for it separate from their DVD service. But I soon realized that I could order a broad assortment of items and get them before I'd probably have gotten around to going to the store anyway. The fact that I travel a fair bit and can reliably order things at a time when I'll be home is another big plus.

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