If this trend continues, ultimately all 50 states will be collecting sales tax from Amazon. In that case, what is amazon's edge going forward, especially if the retails stores can come close on price while offering immediate gratification?
Have you been to Costco? I daresay their customer service blows away amazon
But that's not even the main reason I like Amazon -- it's for the product ratings. How do I know what I'm getting at Costco is the best quality for the price? I can get a very good idea of that at Amazon. Not to mention Costco can't even being to compete with the product selection at Amazon.
That is a fair point. On the flip side, I find phone or email or text-based customer service to be unnerving. I like talking to a real person face-to-face :) Part of why I like TD Bank (in the northeast, it's the only bank open on Sundays)
"How do I know what I'm getting at Costco is the best quality for the price? I can get a very good idea of that at Amazon. Not to mention Costco can't even being to compete with the product selection at Amazon."
There are two ways to look at product selection and product ratings.
Amazon gives you everything and the kitchen sick, and leaves the problem of quality to you (via the ratings scheme, but in order to have a rating someone else must have purchased it and thought it wasn't good). Every purchase carries, above the standard risk of product defect, the risk that the product may be terrible.
While Costco doesn't have the breadth of substitutes in any particular class of item, their selections are generally high quality. They separate the sheep from the goats for you, and while I've had some bad experiences with products from Amazon I haven't had a bad experience with costco stuff (even with their store brand "Kirkland").
So you have Amazon, which gives you depth of selection but requires you to do the due diligence and take the risk, and you have Costco, which gives you limited selection but doesn't offer the stuff that would get 1 or 2 stars on Amazon.
As someone who likes to fuss over every single purchasing decision and compare a dozen nearly-identical models of something before buying, I agree that Amazon's model is preferable. On the whole, I buy more things from Amazon than Costco. But that doesn't mean that Costco's model doesn't have merit for a lot of people.
But most important! I rarely have to use Amazon customer service, because they so rarely screw up.
b) Warehouses allow amazon to serve the profitable long tail of products because they are not limited to shelf space.
c) If they start offering same day service, the advantage of immediate purchase from retail stores will me largely mitigated.
d) I largely dont want to shop in a store anymore because amazon has the discovery problem solved to a much better extent than stores do. I feel very helpless now when I am in a retail store and struggle to answer the question - 'which one of these products is any good'. Retailers could maybe counter that with shopping companion applications but I dont know of any good ones.
If I can order something from my desk at work in the AM and have it in-hand before I drive home, that blows away any brick-and-mortar store by a long shot.
First, a retail store is not really immediate gratification -- I have got get to the retail store. Often times I would rather wait a day or two (and soon it may not even be that much with Amazon), than spend an hour of my time trying to get to and from the store. I also often want to read reviews of what I buy, and Amazon often has the most reviews for any particular product. Trying to lookup reviews, or comparison shop while in a retail store is difficult at best (sometimes not even possible if there is no reception). At least with Amazon if something seems like it may be highly priced, I can quickly search around for an alternative.
With Amazon, I also know the return process will be easy if I need to make a return, and I won't have the go back to the store and argue with a manager.
In other words, there's more to just price that gives Amazon an advantage.
Costco is the same way, and they do it in-store ...
"I have got get to the retail store"
While true, oftentimes you are going there or in the general direction as part of a commute or for some other reason (like getting gas for your car)
The more I think about it, the more compelling a long-COST-short-AMZN trade sounds ...
Depending on where you live, parking can be cheap (I'm paying 450/mo at union square and 300/mo at central park south)
(And NEVER EVER short AMZN. It's a really good way to lose a lot of money.)
Not needing to travel to a store to buy items that I could wait 1-2 days for delivery on.