Amazon gives non-Prime members free shipping at $35 or more of eligible items. Instead of simply letting users get the product with free shipping, they’ve added a discount that prices it exactly one cent below the $35 limit, while only subsidizing the price with $3.38, which is about half of what they’ll then charge you for shipping.

  • dan@upvote.auEnglish
    0·
    3 days ago

    Amazon, the store. the store that sells stuff at “unbeatable” prices and has convenient fast shipping options. exists because Amazon, the corporation, makes most of its money through platforms that are NOT the store.

    They were also famously unprofitable for a very long time, longer than most businesses would consider reasonable. They were founded in 1994 and it took until 2003 to make a profit. They were investing a lot of money back into the business.

    • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      3 days ago

      Exactly. A systemic issue with capitalistic markets is that they inherently select for short term thinking.

      Does it make sense to destroy 90% of your profitability 5 years from now for a 20% bump in profit this quarter? Well, yes, it does, because that’s 20% more profit to expand and take over the market.

      Even if a business were to try to make good long term decisions, it would immediately be crushed and pushed out of the market by all of its competitors willing to make those shortsighted decisions for immediate profits.

      Except in the case of Amazon, thanks to AWS they were able to make good long-term decisions with their e-commerce platform by making short term decisions with AWS.

      • dan@upvote.auEnglish
        0·
        2 days ago

        AWS didn’t exist until after Amazon became profitable. They were already making good long-term decisions before AWS.