Most things coming to Alaska have to go on a plane. Trucks come up here, but much of what they carry is fresh produce and dairy and such. I know I have tried to order ammo and have been told they cannot ship it to Alaska. Gun shops get it, so they must get it through Canada or on a barge, The barges are not for individuals, but you can go through expediters to ship on barges. I got my big water pump that way and it was arranged by one of my sons, who said he can ship anything on a pallet that way. A pallet of ammo would not be practical for most private citizens. The radio thing is just silliness that they don't realize they could just stick that in the mail. By the way, shipping anything UPS up here is astronomical. My wife shipped a small box containing a4 jars of jam and it cost almost $70 to ship it to Washington from here.
I think what you're talking about is margin. Amazon operates on razor thin margins and therefore doesn't make much profit per unit however the fact that they sell exponentially more than anyone else ensures a healthy bottom line. As a casual observer it's a beautiful business model but after 30 years of expansion the cracks are showing. Amazon has grown to the point where they have exceeded the available labour pool in many markets. It will be interesting to see how they'll manage to overcome this.
Here are extracts from the financial info I found on Amazon that I put into a spreadsheet. I'll throw it out here for discussion. I used to manage purchasing/vendors/inventory for a $500M PC hardware/software reseller back in the early days of the industry before there was a lot of competition, and our gross margins were only around 25% or so. Part of that was because we mostly sold the the Fed, and GSA Schedule prices are negotiated on a Cost+ basis...the government determines what a reasonable profit is. But markups of 50%+ are significant.
Amazon's Fiscal 2021 Gross Sales were $470 Billion. Net Income was $33 Billion Walmart's Fiscal 2021 Gross Sales were $560 Billion. Net Income was $14 Billion I did not dig deeply enough to see if there were any extraordinary write-offs that impacted Net Income. Amazon does not have the overhead of retail stores, cashiers, retail shelf-restockers, etc Excepting online sales, Walmart does not have shipping expenses...customers carry their own goods home.
Thousands of Amazon workers are staging strikes and walking out of their jobs on Black Friday, pushing for the company to provide better wages and protect the global environment as it produces strong revenue numbers. Strikes and walkouts are planned for Friday in more than 30 countries as part of the “Make Amazon Pay” campaign. The countries include the United States, India, Australia, Japan and many in Europe.
What does the global environment have to do with Amazon. You would think people would like the high wages they are already making. The younger people in the job market don't have a clue what it was like taking home 90 dollars a week after tax. I think they are setting themselves up for a very expensive life and they will never have enough money. Everything in the country is upside down.
Just a guess but, like the rise in gas prices and the machinations that it took to get us there, this (and the railroad strikes) seems to be little more than another way to raise prices and make life miserable, as a part of the larger agenda.
Today you have a much higher chance of actually ordering what you want because Amazon stocks things that most other suppliers do not have, simply because Amazon purchases more of the items that are wanted. At this time no one has what I need to repair one of my computers and I have looked all over the internet to find something I need with no luck. It is either back ordered or out of stock. Everything computer related comes from China. You can find the same items in stock but they come direct from China and takes forever to get anything due to shipping delays and customs. I am now just taking it easy and waiting to see what happens next month. Not so long ago you could buy one item at a time as you could afford but today with computers if you don't buy what you need all in one purchase you stand a good chance of sitting with a few components that are not compatible and what you need is back ordered or no longer available. I see one year releases as the end of the life cycle of many computer main components. Poor quality things less because large vendors like Newegg and Amazon will stop selling them.
Hopefully this post won't get lost in this long thread, but I'm getting tired of buying food from Amazon that's nowhere near fresh, although nowhere near the expiration date. I read on a different forum that a) they don't keep food in temperature-controlled spaces, and b) they often send products to customers that have been returned by other customers. I don't know how to read bar-codes, but the box of candy-bars I received recently has multiple bar-code stickers on it. I was already a little suspicious because of that. I've purchased probably more than a half-dozen items (multi-packs) during the last couple of years that were not fresh. And that doesn't even count a product that they informed me had been recalled, but with no offer to replace or refund. Would anyone here have any suggestions??? I can't afford to waste food.. plus, when I order products it's because I need the products.
Do you live in an area where you can get grocery store deliveries, Joanna? I assume you know that a lot of stuff sold on Amazon isn't sold BY Amazon, so you have to watch product information when ordering. The item(s) may be shipped from an Amazon warehouse but not sold by Amazon. They have always been good about refunding my money for products that were not up to snuff.
I recently moved to a new town, so I still need to look around and see what's here. Other than product pages that clearly say independent seller, is there some other way to know if it's sold by Amazon?
When looking at the product page, you will see this on the right-hand side of the page... You can see which seller is the "featured" seller and a bit farther down you have the option of choosing a different one (if available.)