Amazon quandary

[wdb]

The quandary is, how do they manage to make a profit?

 

I am prepping a car for a trip I'm taking soon. Among the tasks I'm performing is an oil change, in the midst of which I realized that I did not have enough of the oil specified for that engine. I checked Amazon -- local suppliers don't carry the specific oil I needed -- and not only did they have the oil, they offered to ship it to me "same day or next day". This was at 4:00pm, so imagine my surprise at the "same day" offer. I was additionally surprised to see that if I chose "next day" I had a choice of THREE different delivery time windows; 4-8am, 10am-3pm, or "any time". Given that the car was in process and I wanted to get it finished and off the lift, I chose the early option. I also needed a couple of light bulbs, which Amazon also had, and also provided me with the same delivery options. All of these options added $0.00 to the total cost.

 

This morning at 5:30am one of my Ring doorbells announced a person at the downstairs door. One minute later that person returned. At 5:50am, another person appeared at the same door, but just once. I went down and retrieved the deliveries. Four individual boxes, all identical in size, each containing one of the items I had ordered. 

 

 

 

Four items, four boxes, two separate deliveries. I don't understand how this business model works. Is it some kind of automated process at the warehouse? That may be why the boxes are all the same size and each contains a single item, also why these items "qualified" for all of those delivery options. Or do they pre-package items in anticipation of routine, expected orders? Would I have received more boxes if I had needed more oil, or more bulbs? None of those explains why I got two separate deliveries within minutes of one another.

 

The whole episode feels a bit bizarre.

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 02:06 PM by wdb

[Vovchandr]

It works the same way as to why window salesmen won't leave your house after an estimate without making a sale no matter how cheap they have to go.

 

I assume you have prime to qualify for these offers so they already are having monthly indefinite payment out of you as long as they keep you happy.

 

Early AM truck is already paid for and will be going out regardless whether you ordered or not and will very likely be by your area for other houses. 

 

They do use a lot of robots in packaging but I'm not sure on the details for what goes on inside the warehouse. 

 

Keeping you as a customer and keeping the habit of you coming back is worth a loss even if they happen to acquire one for some purchases. Loss leaders are a thing that enormous corporations can afford to keep customers. Getting new customers isn't free either, advertising is an enormous cost that they pay even if they are the leader in the market. 

 

Final note is I don't even believe Amazon store is their big profit area. I believe AWS (amazon web services) is one of the biggest incomes, among God knows what else they might have their hands into that could be quite lucrative. 

[7Westfield]

I wonder if the nearest whse only had one of each, and they had to send from another locaction

 

still doesn't address the enormous packaging waste   - and not just them...