I’m pretty much the same on this slightly aged August original post regarding Amazon value to the consumer side of retail.

Is it just another lumbering giant on a lifetime bell curve, if yes, where exactly is that curve at? The year 2020, so far is not normal for brick and mortar retail, if the pandemic gets worse, so will most retail.

Of course, Walmart’s doing its thing trying to compete along with a few other big retailers, that actually helps the consumer side of the equation.

As the retail giants and what is left of some older retail has-beens surely watch each other, no doubt in great detail, they probably are all scared of what this 2020 year is doing to their long term business. The good old days of retail may no longer exist in the coming decade for both consumer and retail big and small. Nowadays and years previously retail behavior is so nauseating merely following annual holiday and seasonal trends like the only calendar a seller or retailer has is made by Hallmark. They are like horrible tv shows, all they know about is copy cat everyone that seems a sales hit, so used cars and such.

For example, Amazon announces their Prime day in October all of a sudden, and then everyone else in retail now has a concurrent sale, as if Amazon and all its main competitors just pulled a new Black Friday out of their backsides. How retro and how boring, no original thinking in this old gag. Shows how scared most in the retail business are regarding the consumer sales atmosphere. Well if anything the pandemic can’t get over soon enough but it doesn’t look that way, yet amazon’s infrastructure and size will probably remain the top online retail outlet for years to come, economic inertia.

How good is the Amazon online product? Well compared to who? Yes, this year’s prime (2020) is not exactly as good as the prime of yesteryear, for any number of logistics and some political reasonings, and for now, I think that’s mostly pandemic related. Next year if the pandemic starts winding down, then governments (in Anystan or the USA) will no doubt deep dive into regulations calling it anything from monopoly control, tax dodgers, worker relief, or you name it, all those governments are going to go after what cut they want of the action, its what they do to fund themselves. Don’t think so? How about check the details on something like your monthly phone bill, or any such consumable/service product imaginable, I believe to make up this 2020 hole we are in now the only direction for these ongoing losses, is north on downstream collateral damage, which BTW is our pocketbooks!