[Hextinium]

But think about the corollary where places like McMasterCarr have exact products in known quantities, types and breakdowns because they used to be a catalogue. I will go to McMaster 9/10 times because it's just easy to find exactly what I want and so they get my money.

Amazon seems hostile to this very idea, that I know what I want, will spend 15% more to have it tomorrow and will not by the random stuff it smashes in the search results because I know what I want.

[toasterlovin]

Oh I get it. I actually think there’s a huge opportunity in online retail to gate off categories and brands that are already in, say, Walmart. Then do the Amazon algorithmic model for everything else.

I think you’re missing how crucial Amazon’s algorithmic model has been as a way to connect shoppers with 2 day delivery for an unimaginably long tail of products. We sell a technical product that would be at home on McMaster. On the 2nd largest retailer in the US. It’s incomprehensible that our products would ever be in Target or Walmart stores. Yet we have access to the same customer base at the same place where they can buy Tide. Amazon’s purely algorithmic approach is what allows companies like us to do product/market discovery for them (and their customers).

[bombcar]

Did you know that Amazon has a section that drives to compete with McMastercar? It’s somewhere in Amazon business they have parts and stuff and it’s just a horrible shit show.