Amazon's New App Terrible for Consumers and Retailers

Unethical? yes! Name one thing that isnt price shopped though? View online- credit card- hit “enter”- at your house in two days. (Dont forget the 7% price advantage- no tax and no shipping charges!) No lines, no fights, no mace no gunshots. How do we compete with this????

I really enjoyed this article. Very clearly written in a way that I think anyone can understand!

Consumers “saved” money on the front end, but by sending our money, and therefore our jobs, overseas, we ultimately caused our losses by our “savings”.

Well, this article is built around two concepts: why book sellers are going out of business and the price conscious consumer. Obviously if businesses, whither small or large, do not keep up with technology they get steamed rolled. Borders bit the bullet, and barnes and nobles is barely hanging on by a thread (doesn’t anyone remember their bankruptcy they were fighting off just a year or so ago?). Booksellers are just like the horse and buggy industry or even newspapers today - the market is changing and either the industry changes or it gets steamed rolled - whither your small or not. Now, for the price conscious consumer - there is no getting around an industry that is in a race to the bottom when it comes to price. Amazon is just adding fuel to the fire, I can agree to that. However, successful companies that in industries like this only survive if they come up with an innovative process that separates them from their competitors. An app won’t do - look at Cirque du soleil. They were in a flooded industry and made changes to the process and was able to cut themselves out among the mold. Amazon needs innovation and not just an app.

Everyone seems to want the lower price until their job is moved to another place in-order to keep the prices low.

Let me add another dimension to this in respect to the consumer electronics business. When we commoditize our products, as has happened in so many categories, we leave nothing for the consumer to latch on to other than getting the best price! This became true of CD players, DVD players, and of course, flat-panel TV’s, and so we have “eaten our young!” Yes, there are step-up models available and the independent specialists know how to sell the value in them, but the mass-scale entities that are so prominent in today’s market certainly don’t even convey reasons to make that step up.

There are two laws that cannot be circumvented, (1) You get what you pay for, but (2) The law of diminishing returns sets in very rapidly. So, the answer is “value”. Something that is twice the price is very rarely twice as good, but if it is worth it to YOU to own something better, then that is value. Further, if it is worth it to you to know that service comes along with the step-up products you buy, then the mass merchants simply aren’t the place for you.

Interesting and valid article- but your reason why Borders went under is inaccurate. It had nothing to do with the stores being staffed by non-book lovers. Why is Barnes and Noble still around, then?

Ms. Brown’s perspective is wise. Customers do want more, beyond just a (price) transaction. Unfortunately most consumers do not expect more, since they have not received a quality (consultative) sales experience from a well trained sales resource-anywhere. As the small niche, independent channel has hired young sales clerks who (themselves) have never experienced a true consultative sale presentation. How can anyone understand if one has never experienced what this looks like? Thus, without extensive training, the consumer gets less. It is all about executing around the Vision. Until this changes, where the deeper needs of the consumer are surfaced and satisfied, the customer will drive to the lowest common denominator, price.

I think this article missed the point completely. The consumer who uses Amazon’s app is already price-conscious. The app just makes it more convenient for that consumer to compare and find the best deal. It doesn’t steal sales away from the small, local store - it just saves certain consumers from having to go home and/or make unnecessary trips. Plus, research shows that consumers who go into a local store to compare prices are likely to make a purchase from that store.

While I agree that consumers SHOULD consider more than price, for the most part, they don't (except inexplicably, when it comes to Apple). So while they complain about the supposedly poor economy and the lack of local jobs, they'll purchase online to save as little as ten cents, ignoring that they're killing what's left of Main Street (which isn't much considering that the malls and big box stores killed Main Street long ago.)
Furthermore, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and stores like it have done an absolutely brilliant job of convincing consumers that they have low prices, but except for a few lead items, they actually don't. Large independent dealers, like J&R and B&H in New York City usually have lower prices than the big chains.
It certainly isn't illegal for Amazon to give a discount when consumers scan prices in local retailers, but it is certainly unethical. There's only a few thousand independent booksellers left in the U.S. (as compared to about 16,000 about 15 years ago). Does Amazon have to wipe them all out? Does Amazon really need to turn its consumers into spies? This can actually be counter-productive for Amazon because when there's no bookstores on Main Street, there's less interest in book overall, because they don't remain in the forefront of our minds. And they need to be because if they're not, the young generation of consumers will be reading only their Facebook postings.

Any model that requires the withholding of accurate information to be successful is ultimately doomed to failure.

To survive, small business need to find a way to capitalize on their “smallness”.

It's all relative. In an age of e-readers and tablet computers neither small or large booksellers can compete. You can find something cheap online but can you receive it quickly, cheaply and efficiently? What about returns? Do you want to buy your groceries and have them sitting on your stoop in the elements til you get home? Consumers will shop for HOW they shop as well.

Considering we are still suffering through a horrible recession, unemployment is very high and people have to watch their pennies, how else besides price would you expect people to shop? In addition, I think many people shy away from local stores because they do not want to get pressured into a purchase, it’s more comfortable for them to shop in a big store.