Moral of the story is - people like their goods to be cheap, quickly delivered, and convenient to order. Amazon encompasses all of that and it seems that Otto's companies do not. I applaud his effort to put people ahead of profits, but unless he changes his business model amazon will continue to eclipse his empire.
Counterpoint: Perhaps government should enact regulation to lift the floor to prevent a race to the bottom. Amazon warehouses shouldn't become the sweatshops of tomorrow.
Governments exist to protect their citizens, not their businesses.
>>Governments exist to protect their citizens, not their businesses.
I totally agree. The problem is that many people defend businesses because, they say, those businesses provide people with jobs. Following this line of thinking, they are willing to completely ignore the shitty practices of said businesses, because in their eyes, jobs > *.
As mentioned in the article, it isn't really. There were mass protests by amazon employees in Germany last year. I don't know if anything really changed since then, but I kind of doubt it.
That would work in the short term, but in the long term they are just going to get rid of the employees entirely with robots. Which is of course, far worse, and already widely done in other industries, with no one protesting them.
Convenience here really is the main reason. On otto you still mostly have to use categories, on amazon you have an exceptional search. You have third party sellers on amazon and a streamlined buying process.
Different retailers target different sectors of the market and those sectors have varying levels of profit and growth. To me, Amazon seems to be aiming at the lower end, i.e. they focus on price rather than ethics, so they experience high growth in sales and relatively low profits.
I don't think everyone should copy them. It's like telling Apple to copy Acer or Samsung.
