The ultimate in stupidity and wastefulness from Amazon.

That's one of the reason, the other being they don't want to waste the space in warehouse holding inventories until they ship. Despite having the ability to do same day shipping, if you are not in prime they just hold your order and money for a few days then ship, and the cash flow adds up.

If they already have a full van delivering on their own, making an extra stop won't cost too much more. Holding your cash and then order from their vendor instead of keeping inventories is a good business if they can pull it off. Target on the other hand do ask if you want to save $1 and wait for the deliveries to be combined or not. I like that option better.

One thing I also heard is that the inventories you see is not the same as the inventories others see. They favors showing you items in stock nearby instead of far away only. If they are low on inventories or closing out at a great price, they show them as in stock near the warehouse and out of stock for far away customers. (I'm pretty sure they also do that to profitable customers instead of cheap stakes looking for only loss leaders).

I noted that have zero inventory was Amazon's original business model. I don't think there have been that many products that Amazon still has a vendor ship. They are probably the leading logistics company in the world - even better than UPS or FedEx.

Amazon used to not have free shipping, and lumping shipments together was the way to save on shipping. I remember getting stuff sent all the way from Kentucky. Sometimes they would still get split up because they were in different warehouses, but I still got the break on shipping. I also remember a lot of shipments from Nevada, back when Amazon was deliberately avoiding a California warehouse/retail presence in order to avoid sales tax in their biggest market. But these days it might not make that much sense for the customer if one is Prime member. Just order what you want unless it's an add-on item that even Prime members can't get free shipping unless the entire order is above a certain amount.

Sometimes I don't get their pricing. I was just looking around and a suggested item was some packages of 4-inch AmazonBasics Lightning cables. I'd prefer 6-8 inches with a short cable, but these are nice to have around especially when using with a USB power pack and as emergency spares. I could only get them in certain colors and styles, but for some reason I could get a box of 12 for $16 and $12, plus tax. It was totally weird too as I checked other colors and some sold for $150 for the same box of 12. Then I checked again after I'd picked them up and it was showing $100. I thought maybe it was a fat finger deal, but I managed to buy it without issue. They weren't even marked as any kind of special deal. That shipping was odd though. One came from some Bay Area Amazon warehouse, but the final delivery was to an Amazon Locker location where it was delivered by USPS.
 
Just order what you want unless it's an add-on item that even Prime members can't get free shipping unless the entire order is above a certain amount.

Sometimes I don't get their pricing. I was just looking around and a suggested item was some packages of 4-inch AmazonBasics Lightning cables. I'd prefer 6-8 inches with a short cable, but these are nice to have around especially when using with a USB power pack and as emergency spares. I could only get them in certain colors and styles, but for some reason I could get a box of 12 for $16 and $12, plus tax. It was totally weird too as I checked other colors and some sold for $150 for the same box of 12. Then I checked again after I'd picked them up and it was showing $100. I thought maybe it was a fat finger deal, but I managed to buy it without issue. They weren't even marked as any kind of special deal. That shipping was odd though. One came from some Bay Area Amazon warehouse, but the final delivery was to an Amazon Locker location where it was delivered by USPS.

Those odd color odd length bay area warehouse deal are likely what they try to do to get rid of some corner cases inventories that cannot be automated back into their vendor or warehouse efficiently. I see this as the same as those Safeway discount once in a while or how some shoes are marked down 60% when they start running out of certain sizes. It could also be like engine oil changing spec (except Amazon Basic don't have a spec they need to tell you), they may be changing vendor and wants to get rid of old stock.

I recently starts realizing that manufacturing cost these days are really just a small part of the whole product cost, like how restaurants have to sell ingredients at least 3x to 8x to make a profit to cook and serve you. With Amazon managing their own shipping, they don't need every deal to make money as long as they can do it profitably as a business. They can pick out the route that are cost effective to use their own drivers and then let USPS do the unprofitable ones.

One more thing: in Seattle Amazon occupy many office buildings by no more than 1/2 of the total capacity. I was wondering why don't they occupy the whole building initially, then I started to realize they actually occupy more than 1/2 of the electrical load, air conditioning, local traffic, etc. Having around 1/2 of them open for other businesses to be nearby is actually good for both the landlord (Amazon being the anchor tenants) and to reduce their infrastructure burden with others (they can use 80% of the infrastructure for 50% of the cost).
 
Why shop amazon?
Becuaee they are the only ones that get me Clorox wipes. And I can have TP and paper towels delivered to my porch for less than I can buy at Walmart.
 
Those odd color odd length bay area warehouse deal are likely what they try to do to get rid of some corner cases inventories that cannot be automated back into their vendor or warehouse efficiently. I see this as the same as those Safeway discount once in a while or how some shoes are marked down 60% when they start running out of certain sizes. It could also be like engine oil changing spec (except Amazon Basic don't have a spec they need to tell you), they may be changing vendor and wants to get rid of old stock.

I recently starts realizing that manufacturing cost these days are really just a small part of the whole product cost, like how restaurants have to sell ingredients at least 3x to 8x to make a profit to cook and serve you. With Amazon managing their own shipping, they don't need every deal to make money as long as they can do it profitably as a business. They can pick out the route that are cost effective to use their own drivers and then let USPS do the unprofitable ones.

I had another look at the shipping, and it might not have come from a Bay Area warehouse. The return address on both is North Las Vegas, but the first thing that shows up in the tracking is that it arrived at an Amazon facility in Newark, CA. That might have been my confusion. The return address says something about "Suite 115" in N Las Vegas but Google Maps shows that it's a massive warehouse with box trailers surrounding the building.

These are the ones I got. Red wasn't my preference, but it seemed so cheap until I found an even cheaper box a week later.


The prices seem to jump randomly every once in a while. Right now they're at around $50-100, but when I was buying it was $16.42 for the first one and $13.34 for the second one. This is for a box of 12 mind you. I don't know how they make any money off of it between buying from a supplier (with MFi certification), boxing, labeling, envelopes (one came in a padded envelope while the other was shipped in the box alone with a label).

The other thing was that I wasn't aware that USPS could load deliveries into Amazon Locker locations. I was under the impression that only Amazon personnel could do that.
 
^ I got a ten pack of wheel bearings for a chinese ATV for <$4 through Amazon. Cheaper than buying one anywhere else. Still have 9 of them on a shelf. My kids are going to have fun cleaning out my estate when I kick the bucket. :geek:
 
Why shop amazon?
Becuaee they are the only ones that get me Clorox wipes. And I can have TP and paper towels delivered to my porch for less than I can buy at Walmart.

Interesting. I never see them cheaper than local box stores. How much cheaper are they? Are they deals only for prime member?
 
These are the ones I got. Red wasn't my preference, but it seemed so cheap until I found an even cheaper box a week later.


The prices seem to jump randomly every once in a while. Right now they're at around $50-100, but when I was buying it was $16.42 for the first one and $13.34 for the second one. This is for a box of 12 mind you. I don't know how they make any money off of it between buying from a supplier (with MFi certification), boxing, labeling, envelopes (one came in a padded envelope while the other was shipped in the box alone with a label).

The other thing was that I wasn't aware that USPS could load deliveries into Amazon Locker locations. I was under the impression that only Amazon personnel could do that.

They screw up the demand forecast for that color. Fashion businesses have to mark down the wrong style inventories all the time because of that. Probably by the time they figured out red didn't sell they already have the next 6 months of inventories ordered and have to get rid of them fast.
 
They screw up the demand forecast for that color. Fashion businesses have to mark down the wrong style inventories all the time because of that. Probably by the time they figured out red didn't sell they already have the next 6 months of inventories ordered and have to get rid of them fast.

The prices just seemed so volatile though. I saw the prices at $150 for certain types. They went down then back up. It just seemed so improbable that the price could be 90% off. Now I'm not crying over Amazon losing any money on my sale, but it just seemed so odd.
 
Interesting. I never see them cheaper than local box stores. How much cheaper are they? Are they deals only for prime member?

you missed the most important part.
walmart hasn’t had Clorox wipes in six months.
amazon sends two boxes per month like clockwork.
 
Interesting. I never see them cheaper than local box stores. How much cheaper are they? Are they deals only for prime member?
I don’t either … and when he decided he needed a newspaper I quit shopping there … life goes on in a country where spending money is just too easy …
 
Why shop amazon?
Becuaee they are the only ones that get me Clorox wipes. And I can have TP and paper towels delivered to my porch for less than I can buy at Walmart.
Why leave the house and deal with the Walmart hassles when you can shop from home... ?

I buy everything from Amazon except fresh food and vegetables.
 
I’ll be happy once Amazon drones can deliver _____ to my door step.

Walmart also investing in drone technologies.
 
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