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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KeepItSimple who wrote (63481)	6/21/1999 2:46:00 AM
From: ypz	Respond to of 164684

No one knows for sure where Amazon will be. It seems that the people who work for Amazon or other .coms cannot tell.

To: KeepItSimple who wrote (63481)	6/21/1999 10:27:00 AM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Actually, 90% of mattresses, just like bricks used in buildings, or your local coca cola bottler, are made at local plants. At a certain distance the shipping costs on heavy and bulky but uncomplicated items (unlike imported autos) become so great that a closer competitor is able to dominate a market. You just made a case for my argument. A Serta mattress factory in what, California, another in Texas another in Ohio and one in NYC and Fla? Does this sound efficient to you? Plant and equipment is much worse on the balance sheet than logistics anyway. With this model you have option one - that you describe, multiple factories or two - multiple regional warehouses and storage. It is the factories and warehouses, personnel etc that are the worst (although the transport is still bad). The centralized e-commerce biz model wins hands down here. The one drawback is no retail outlet for customers to try before you buy. That is the real problem with heavy goods in my mind. Will customers buy without seeing these things - I don't know. Something e-commerce hawks never bother to think about. Then again, most of them don't know anything about retail other than "AMAZON TO THE MOON, YEAH!!" Oh as opposed to your extensive retail background which shines through brilliantly in your posts