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

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (12996)	8/9/1998 1:13:00 PM
From: Rob S.	Respond to of 164687

Very interesting article. This fits with one of my speculations that large distributors, who are experts in such things as automated warehouses, tracking, and packaging systems, would sharpen their focus to deliver very cost efficient EDI and drop-shipment of merchandise from their inventories. That puts the Amazons' and Barnes & Nobles' on a more even playing field with large numbers of independent inet marketers. Since B & N started offering their Associates program, I have noticed several sites now offer product links for both Amazon and B & N. Once an associated site builds up a certain level of business at B & N and/or Amazon, they may increasingly be tempted to "cut out the middleman" and sell the product through Ingram or other wholesaler. The wholesaler can probably pay 20%-30% margin to the "associate" compared to Amazon's ~10%. Maybe they would just use that ability to force them to pay more of the profits. With open profiling standards and credit card standards proliferating, the ease of doing this should bring down the barriers to this channel of competition.