General Request to pretty much everybody (or so it seems).

[Jstpssng]

All that you need to do is look at independent newspaper delivery people to see how subs will be treated.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I know a guy that does that. My God, what slavery!

I delivered thousands of flyers as a kid. They never paid me! Just thinking about it. The little guy got shafted back then, and as the little guy now, Iam getting shafted more and more by Government, Big Business and Technology.

 

[daugen]

great thread, some thoughts with my normal wordiness, sorry.

Main Street businesses in non touristy towns and cities are either going to be local bodegas or I think they won't make it. Dollar stores will prevail, the lowest common denominator. What I'm curious about is how will these tariffs affect the competitiveness of the dollar stores, and are there
major changes in the wind? I owned a Main Street retail business for five years. And sold my electronic business before Circuit City came to town. Not sure I would have survived. And now where is Circuit City?...

On Amazon in the question area usually one of the first questions is where is the product made.

It's troubling to hear about how Amazon perpetuates a kind of lower menial class, one step above the fast food joints.
Use robots, and use humans only where needed. They probably treat their robots better. But maybe that's just the new
order in shipping and warehousing companies.

Troubling because I think we vote at the ballot box, we vote with our wallet and we vote with our feet.
If you don't like it, move. No whining. If you genuinely can't improve your lot, because some bad person or company
is holding you down, in perhaps inhumane working conditions, then you have a right to squawk and be heard.

There is a reason they call diamonds "blood diamonds". Where things come from can be very bad news.
Places I don't want to support. I'm not a fully green investor but I do have socially responsible investments in part.
And what really drives this all home to me is while I never buy stock, because I've been a Amazon member since 2001,
I had faith in the viability of the company. It really worked well for me, and I figured driving to stores was going to be a
thing of the past until public transportation improved. So I bought a good sized chunk of Amazon stock at $650.
Like hitting the lottery, on a very small scale. Helped me buy two used tractors. Amazon stock is now in the high 1900's meaning
my investment tripled. What is not to like about that?

But I'm wondering if now is the time to sell it all.

I live in rural farmland outside a small Southern city. The one department store in town is a joke. Home Depot left, not enough business in town for more than just Lowes. And Lowes is expensive and the staff is never there to help you. You spend half your time there hunting and searching, often for help, on those hard concrete floors that are really bad news on my arthritis. So...I click with my mouse, or do I walk those concrete floors? The appeal is clear.

The worst blow to our community was the closing of the only Ace Hardware store, run by lovely people for years, who set the absolute highest
standard of retail service. You were met at the door, you were walked to the aisle and had your choices pointed to you, you were greeted with a smile and you left hearing a thank you. I was impressed by these folks, and saddened when they finally retired, and no one would buy their business, which was almost being given away. No one wanted to start a new hardware store. Why? Could it be Amazon?

Amazon is a business success story. But ends don't always justify means. We have to be careful with the way these companies conduct themselves. Because we can vote with our wallet and our feet.
I never trusted Ebay, always seemed like the wild west, Amazon seemed a safer place to shop.
But now there are lots of exclusions and take backs, things they used to guarantee and support
are no longer and bum merchants get in there. I try to look for the ones marked standard Prime.

And yesterday a box showed up, from Walmart of all places, for some Scott industrial paper towels I ordered,
from Amazon. Walmart is distributing through Amazon.
What a world.

Googling the product will often find other alternative sites. But not like Google doesn't have its issues too...

 

[Jstpssng]

I only wish that mail order companies could figure out that some of us have PO Boxes; yet it shouldn't require us to fill in all of the information twice. Oftentimes I don't even know if an item will be shipped via UPS or USPS; or maybe FedEx, who at some point will dump it into the US postal system. I've started putting both PO Box and street address in the same line and being a real p***23d about it; if they can't figure out how to get it to me then I'll cancel the order.

So far I have never had an order cancelled.

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

Just want to add a comment on those who posted many Amercians are not willing to work. I see it more and more as well. Part of the problem is the "safety net" of assistance programs that make it possible to survive without working much if at all. Some of these people work for cash to keep their entitlements and also to avoid taxes. Maybe it is more of a rural thing....at least in my area it is common. We are raising generations of people like this and it will not bode well for our country.

I used to mostly disagree with this, I think because I never really knew anyone who didn't work hard. But since I moved to the country and as an employer, I'm shocked to find so many young people with no ambition, no work ethic. And the drugs. So much worse than anything I saw in cities.

(And by the way the $8/hr would be for a part-time kid working after school doing very light work.)

 

[GirlWhoWantsTractor]

Amazon is a business success story. But ends don't always justify means. We have to be careful with the way these companies conduct themselves. Because we can vote with our wallet and our feet.
I never trusted Ebay, always seemed like the wild west, Amazon seemed a safer place to shop.
But now there are lots of exclusions and take backs, things they used to guarantee and support
are no longer and bum merchants get in there. I try to look for the ones marked standard Prime.

Prime and Fulfilled by Amazon are just two more ways Amazon is squeezing small sellers. Sell on Amazon and they take a huge cut of each sale. Go Prime and they take another cut. Go Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) and they take another cut plus warehousing charges, etc. And they are systematically and gradually forcing all sellers to do all of this. This reduces sellers to the role of simply shipping their products to Amazon warehouses, and Amazon does everything else and takes all the profits. Because of the extremely slim profit margin left for any seller doing the Prime FBA thing, guess who can most easily afford to do this? Yep, Chinese sellers are slowly taking over Amazon. Just like Walmart, it is becoming a marketplace for China. Not saying that's good or bad.

And btw, there is no such thing as free shipping. However this is another way Amazon can kill other online retailers; their huge volume means they have insanely low "negotiated rates" with UPS, USPS, FedEx, etc. So they beat everyone else on shipping costs too.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^^
You left out that they are getting consumers to pay for that accelerated shipping. Those of us who refuse to pay are pushed to the bottom of the list... or go elsewhere. :thumbsup:

 

[reb]

I only wish that mail order companies could figure out that some of us have PO Boxes; yet it shouldn't require us to fill in all of the information twice. Oftentimes I don't even know if an item will be shipped via UPS or USPS; or maybe FedEx, who at some point will dump it into the US postal system. I've started putting both PO Box and street address in the same line and being a real p***23d about it; if they can't figure out how to get it to me then I'll cancel the order.

So far I have never had an order cancelled.

Mail here is not delivered to our doors; PO boxes are the rule. I used to put down the PO box as my address, but sometimes the seller would reply that he cannot deliver to a PO Box. Then I would have to start over with my street address. Using the street address along with the PO Box would trigger the software that rejects PO Box delivery. If I started with the street address and it was delivered via US Mail, the bureaucrat in charge of our post office would raise a fuss, even though she knows everyone here and can put things in the appropriate box with only the name available. She finally agreed that I could use my street address, followed by #[box no.]. Now things get delivered without the extra hassle.

 

[QRTRHRS]

Mail here is not delivered to our doors; PO boxes are the rule. I used to put down the PO box as my address, but sometimes the seller would reply that he cannot deliver to a PO Box. Then I would have to start over with my street address. Using the street address along with the PO Box would trigger the software that rejects PO Box delivery. If I started with the street address and it was delivered via US Mail, the bureaucrat in charge of our post office would raise a fuss, even though she knows everyone here and can put things in the appropriate box with only the name available. She finally agreed that I could use my street address, followed by #[box no.]. Now things get delivered without the extra hassle.

LOL! Not at your pain mind you but I have an address that most on line software will not confirm. My post office knows where I am as does UPS but Fedex is another story. My neighbor and I are luckily good friends as we exchange wrong deliveries regularly. I even have a mailbox with my name and address at the beginning of my easement road. My question is does Fedex go through that many drivers or do they rotate them?

 

[Jstpssng]

I know all to well what you're saying; I'm just tired of going through the rigamorole and think that it's about time mail order companies started accommodating us. Otherwise I will spend my money elsewhere.
I got denied a credit card from my bank because the post office doesn't recognize my road... hence the PO Boxes. I had over 25K on deposit there... I wasn't long moving it to my CU.