Would you buy your food on Amazon?

Generally I agree with you Duncan but Amazon might have calculated that the religious guidance on certain foods and methods of preparation plus the preferences of various nationalities could actually give them a commercial edge. Many people of the faiths you mention now live some way away from their traditional residential areas and are therefore not able to buy the products they require in local shops and supermarkets. Some nationalities are catered for by the bigger supermarkets but most areas now have pockets of other nationalities but no outlets to serve them. Buying on-line from Amazon [possibly in their own languages] could be the answer to their prayers in some cases and solve the problem for the others. There is a whole aisle of Polish foodstuffs in our nearest large Tesco but nothing special for all the other minority populations [except in the drinks department].

The big supermarkets have managed to wreck our high streets by selling everything a family could want and now that local shops and market stalls have disappeared they are gradually de-listing products from their inventory as well as driving up prices. Amazon has ruined the book and music trades, been the kiss of death for hardware shops, left little competition for electrical appliances, and plundered many other traditional markets. In every case choice and competition have been eroded and now it’s going to happen all over again with food. With such dominance a monopoly position must be approaching since it has a vice-like grip on the supply chain as well. The barriers to entry to compete against Amazon are now so enormous it would be impossible.

I agree with DieselTaylor that Amazon will cherry-pick its delivery postcodes on a demographic and logistical basis and marginal and provincial areas will be excluded while finding that alternative sources have closed. At the same time Amazon will exploit every opportunity for cross-selling to a new customer base further undermining town centre shopping. Nevertheless, I can see the appeal of this service to people who think they are far too busy to do their own shopping and will rave over the convenience of it. Regretfully I would expect it to succeed notwithstanding our objections.

What is so shocking is the assistance we have tax-payers given to an extraordinarily wealthy company.

Just Google Amazon , Wales, and grants for but one instance. The main point is that if you reduce jobs by closing down small businesses around the country and supply customers from a very leanly staffed warehouse you are in actuality exporting the cost of unemployment to the tax-payers as a whole.

Furthermore on a global scale companies like Amazon and Uber are taking the profit element abroad. This may seem a trivial point but in actual fact if 20% of a taxi fare disappears out of the country then that 20% is not going to be spent in the UK.

There are studies that shows the effect of spending within a community and the increased economic activity that results.

We need to consider seriously that aiding one type of vendor over others does have effects. Consider the huge amount of fuel spent on deliveries of single items – and the consequent pollution and wear and tear on the infrastructure. Perhaps a flat rate tax per delivery would make people more likely to think and consolidate orders, and also pick-ups of rejected goods.

That is just a spur of the moment example.

Lots of wealthy companies get government assistance to locate their operations here and to “create” jobs and export (in some cases). BMW (Mini), Honda, Nissan for example actually making things. If this assistance helps the economy and gets more people working is it bad for us – when they, like Amazon, could locate somewhere else in Europe?

I hope that no-one considers giving Amazon government assistance.

The Welsh already have I am afraid.:
” Amazon received a grant of £8.8 million towards the cost of the Swansea warehouse but also there was the construction of the Ffordd Amazon access road, with, according to Panorama, £4.9 million of Welsh Government funding. Amazon, a company that pays little or no tax in the UK, is being heavily subsidised by politicians of all mainstream parties in the different countries across the UK.”

And currently their very own interchange on a motorway paid for by the taxpayer:

” GMB has learned from local sources that the company will get a further grant of £17 million from the UK Government to build their new warehouse.
In January 2015 GMB held a public meeting in Ashford to put pressure on Amazon to come clean about the impact of the new Amazon warehouse planned for Sevington near the M20 in Kent which would use the new junction 10A. See notes to Editor for copy of previous GMB press release in January 2015.
GMB has been pressing that Amazon agrees to meet the full cost of between £66m and £90m for constructing a new junction 10A on the M20 in Ashford. The projected new junction is 700 metres south east of junction 10 and will allow access to the new Amazon warehouse.”
gmb.org.uk/newsroom/public-money-for-amazon

Malcolm-r – You need to look at the type of staffing a big supply warehouse needs. Off-hand and from what I have posted before I seem to recall it is a 40 to one job loss ratio. I promise you 400 low-paid jobs in South wales and 1600 disappear elsewhere in the UK.

Ah! But this is US statistics where shops are bigger
” Shops employ 47 people for every $10m in sales, according to research done by a company called ILSR. Amazon employs only 14 people per $10m of revenue. In Britain, it turned over £4.2bn last year, which is a net loss of 23,000 jobs. And even the remaining jobs, the hard, badly paid jobs in Amazon’s warehouses, are hardly future-proof. Amazon has just bought an automated sorting system called Kiva for $775m. How many retail jobs, of any description, will there be left in 10 years’ time?”

Whereas Nissan et al will be buying locally manufactured parts and employing in well-paid jobs most of Amazon’s will be just over minimum wage for a 10 hour shift. You can appreciate of course that if in the end we have a network of Amazon warehouses covering the country a huge amount of wealth will be departing off-shore and we will have masses of unemployed also.

I find it surprising that it is not self-evident where this is going.

As you say, Diesel, “Amazon . . . pays little or no tax in the UK“, – we pay it for them: it’s called VAT. We have a choice and can buy elsewhere.

And our VAT goes to paying for their competitive advantage [ their own interchange!!!] over existing UK shops.

You will no doubt appreciate the irony that by helping a company sell cheaply the government is also reducing the VAT it might collect from shops and the tax on the wages of the staff they employ.

Magical isn’t it. The government engineering in the destruction of its tax base. Of course we can choose where we buy but to expect the average customer to understand the longer term outcome is a bit rich.

We elect for Govts. to do the thinking long term for us and unfortunately politicians seem no brighter. Also we must consider the potential benefit for politicians in siding with big businesses with large Boards. Or indeed those which own important media outlets.

Put more forcefully from the US.
” The state is giving the Seattle-based online retailer $5 million in tax credits “to help lure” an Amazon office with 500 jobs to 7 W. 34th St. in Midtown Manhattan, Bloomberg News reports.
That $5 million is in addition to $2 million in New York state tax credits already awarded to Amazon for a Brooklyn fashion-photo studio. And it raises some issues that come up whenever government at any level decides to reward a business with special tax treatment.
The first is one of equity. Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos, is worth about $28.8 billion, according to Bloomberg. Amazon’s market capitalization is about $144 billion. Why should individual New Yorkers who are worth less, or who work for smaller companies, pay the full tax rate, while Amazon gets a special discount?
What’s more, Amazon is in a competitive industry. Why should New Yorkers who own or work at Amazon competitors such as Barnes & Noble or small independent bookstores be taxed to support their business rival? Why should literary agents, publishers, and authors who increasingly fear Amazon’s market clout be taxed at full rates to subsidize Amazon?”

I understand you point, diesel, but if Amazon choose to locate their warehouse somewhere else – say Europe – and continue to develop their business here, as they will, those same jobs may disappear but with nothing to help offset them.

Valid point. However the answer is to legislate to restore a more normal market where local shops can generally compete on price. Taxation on deliveries and pick-ups would seem well targeted.

We also need to appreciate that the advances in the psychology of buying and selling are being deployed increasingly well and perhaps as a society we need to consider that the dice are being loaded against some buyers.

I can distinctly recall a pair who may have become senile but would daily have orders from the various shopping channel delivered, and then returned the next day or so. I have no idea as to the interior of their flat or their finances but I know the neighbours were very concerned.

I knew someone who going on-line in a drunken state ended up buying various large hunting knives. Money better spent on his children.

Is it that humans in their own homes are easy marks for sales as we lose the wariness we need when holding on to our money.

Well said dieseltaylor. It is becoming much too easy for people to buy goods online from large conglomerates whose main aim is to persuade you to part with your hard earned cash.

Its going =TTIP diesel.

A number of people have fallen foul of that Prime offer, Beryl. They refunded anyone who complained about the tactic they used which was – for a short while – to make choosing the Prime trial the default option. It’s no longer done but I have to say that I’ve always regarded Prime as good value for money.

Subscribing to Prime is a pre-condition of having food deliveries from Amazon – plus a monthly charge of £6.99.