[a2128]

It's certainly not the case that you can just buy something outside of Amazon and it'll magically be 40% cheaper. For a long time Amazon pursued aggressive strategies to drive out competition and physical stores, leaving Amazon the most convenient or sometimes the only option.

Having built an extremely strong position, they can now increase prices and fees, and leverage power over sellers to stop them from listing lower prices off-Amazon, if they want to also sell on Amazon. See page 42 of https://web.archive.org/oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/... for an example of this

[ttoinou]

So, a competitor could also invest a lot, drive out competition, be the most convenient, build themselves an extremely strong position then reap the rewards ? This strategy can be replicated, thus is subject to market forces

[a2128]

The market today is extremely different to what the market looked like at the time Amazon worked their strategy, it was dominated mainly by physical retailers that may have required a long drive, things were not always stocked, limited choice on what's stocked on shelves. And ordering over a phone from paper catalogs had long delivery times and limited information beyond just a picture and short description. Amazon disrupted the industry by changing all of this and becoming the first major online retailer.

You won't be able to just replicate their strategy, and they've spent ridiculous amounts of money on next-day/same-day delivery infrastructure that nobody's gonna be able to invest that much. But if you do have any ideas on how to disrupt Amazon and be more convenient than them in 2025 let me know :)

[thrance]

You can't realistically compete with a Monopoly like Amazon. They'll buy you out way before you can be an inconvenience to them, or drown you by artificially lowering their price until you go bankrupt if you refuse their deal. And even in the off-chance you somehow replace them, then great. We're back to square one.

[danaris]

Sure, "a competitor" with hundreds of billions of dollars and a few decades to burn could, in theory, do that.

But what would be the payoff? Getting to compete head-to-head with Amazon? Amazon, that's a well-established incumbent, with a well-known pattern of ruthless dealings, including leveraging their ties with governments, to protect their monopoly?

No one's going to be able to make a profit doing that.