Amazon & Panorama

bartelbe

Amazon is hopeless for small sellers anyway, you can't tailor you listings very much and it is impossible to undercut the big sellers. The repricing robots mean that many items just collapse to a loss making price.

bartelbe

GlynD wrote: »

You speak the truth. The times have changed and many of us have adapted to those changes. Companies who don't change their business models are going to go out the window. Many already have.

Directories especially and newspapers have been badly hit because they day is over but they still cling on hoping to find a place in the world of the internet. The writing's on the wall for them however. Your example of the Yellow Pages publisher is a prime example of what I'm referring to.

Just as radio and TV killed variety the internet has killed many business off who can't or won't change.

So when Amazon and co have offshored every job to a low cost country, with a few crappy zero-hour minimum wage jobs here, who will actually buy anything in Britain?

Henry Ford was no socialist, but he realised that if he didn't pay the workers in his factory enough to afford one of his cars, he wouldn't have anybody to sell his cars to.

soolin

bartelbe wrote: »

So when Amazon and co have offshored every job to a low cost country, with a few crappy zero-hour minimum wage jobs here, who will actually buy anything in Britain?

Henry Ford was no socialist, but he realised that if he didn't pay the workers in his factory enough to afford one of his cars, he wouldn't have anybody to sell his cars to.

Historically you are of course correct, however for accuracy it is worth noting where a very high percentage of Ford cars are now made.

Like most companies Ford have had to move with the times, what happened 100+ years ago cannot be compared to what happens today. I wonder how many Mexican and Chinese people can afford a new car off their assembly line? I don't live a million miles from the now disused Dagenham plant and many of my friends had relatives working at Ford and guess what, none of them (apart from one office worker) drove a new Ford, in fact most of them drove cheaper imported cars.

RFW

bartelbe wrote: »

Amazon is hopeless for small sellers anyway, you can't tailor you listings very much and it is impossible to undercut the big sellers. The repricing robots mean that many items just collapse to a loss making price.

With the items we sell it's easy enough to compete with the big sellers. The problems I have are with 'passer by' sellers who have no idea what they will be getting charged and how much they are paying in postage. Getting 5p back per item sold is not my idea of a good profit.
A lot of the time they don't even price correctly. An item that sells well at £5 and above does not need to be listed at £2, it's sheer folly.

anotheruser

Watched it last night.
I won't be stopping my spending on Amazon though.

The problem is people... they accept the conditions like that.
If they all quit and nobody else wanted to work there then Amazon would have to improve. I guess this is one good thing about Unions... however most Unions use their power for the wrong reason.

Mistral001

This programme as far as I could see had one message: Amazon is a bad company.

Why are they a bad company? Well they are a bad company because when an employee scans a wrong item, the scanner beeps and when they are two minutes late clocking on they are reported.

I have done menial jobs and most had worse conditions. If you were one minute late you got 30mins pay docked and when it rained you worked through it.

soolin

Mistral001 wrote: »

This programme as far as I could see had one message: Amazon is a bad company.

Why are they a bad company? Well they are a bad company because when an employee scans a wrong item, the scanner beeps and when they are two minutes late clocking on they are reported.

I have done menial jobs and most had worse conditions. If you were one minute late you got 30mins pay docked and when it rained you worked through it.

I am old enough to have had jobs when I was younger that considered me 'late' if I was not there, physically in the building and with my work badge on ready to start 10 minutes before my paid time. So paid 8.30- 5.30 and my actual time was 8.15- 5.45.

My son now , admittedly he has a very good graduate job (and straight from uni), but his contract assumes 40 hours a week but with the contractual obligation to do more work as required unpaid and to sign that he has excluded himself from the European working time directive.

GlynD

bartelbe wrote: »

So when Amazon and co have offshored every job to a low cost country, with a few crappy zero-hour minimum wage jobs here, who will actually buy anything in Britain?

Henry Ford was no socialist, but he realised that if he didn't pay the workers in his factory enough to afford one of his cars, he wouldn't have anybody to sell his cars to.

I don't care where their workers are located. If they still provide me with the service I want then I'll still buy from them. It's as simple as that.

I couldn't give too hoots about what Henry Ford did 100 years ago. It has no bearing on what I do now.

Brooker_Dave

GlynD wrote: »

I don't care where their workers are located. If they still provide me with the service I want then I'll still buy from them. It's as simple as that.

I couldn't give too hoots about what Henry Ford did 100 years ago. It has no bearing on what I do now.

Boris would be proud of you...