I like to think Amazon.com is my friend.
If I go on their website or their mobile app to find an item, even the obscure, it’s usually there.
As a consumer, Amazon.com is my friend. I’ve been a member of their Amazon Prime program for years. Pay an annual free less than a hundred-bucks and get free two-day shipping on most items. I’ve probably kept that membership going because I’m too lazy to cancel it.
But the consumer in me thinks it’s a good deal.
I order my Kool-Aid Singles, that for some reason grocery stores don’t want to carry, and in two days I have them on my doorstep.
I downloaded the Amazon app for my iPad and, one night in a stooper of boredom, bought a Ukulele. And a case. And a tuner. And a learn-how-to-play-it book.
It has become an incredible dust collector and I’m sure Cosmo the cat loves strumming the strings believing it’s some type of scratching doo-dad felines love.
Amazon.com has made it very convenient to find items and have them delivered in record time.
As an eCommerce guy, I hate Amazon.com. I hate it enough to put the word “hate” in bold.
I’m even a little embarrassed to even admit here that I’m one of “those people” who order from the web’s most well known prostitute.
Much like a brothel, Amazon.com uses it’s sexy to attract customers, then lure them into the front door where they whore products at prices most eCommerce stores cannot compete with.
The eCommerce giant has been a bone of contention with me for over a decade. I know first hand how hard it is for some merchants to compete product-for-product with the big A. I’ve seen eCommerce businesses succumb to the pressure and close their virtual doors because they just couldn’t compete.
Not everything reeks of formaldehyde. For every ten bad stories I hear from merchants about Amazon, there’s one good one (or semi-good one). Like the one store owner who said, “Amazon saved me. I sell more items through Amazon than I do on my regular store.” However, he wasn’t so enthusiastic about telling me how he had to drop his prices by 17%, pay a very high revenue share and use Amazon’s pay-to-house-it-with-us fulfillment service.
I believe all eCommerce store owners have a love-hate relationship with the company named after a muddy river somewhere over there. The ratio of love -vs- hate depends on what you’re selling, how you’re buying, and how competitive you can be.
Love ’em or hate ’em, when it’s all said and done, there’s only going to be one winner in the eCommerce space. Care to guess who it’s going to be?
– – –
On to the mailbag:
Via Facebook: How did you come up with the name Solid Cactus?
For as much as I’d like to come up with some grandiose story on the origin and regale you of tales of intrigue and wild fantasy, I can’t. Joe Palko, one of our first team members Kurt Illian, and I sat around in the office one day and said, “What are we going to call this thing?” I remember saying something along the lines of, “Whatever we call it, it has to look good in a logo.” We threw tossed some ideas around, someone called me a “prick,” I equated that to a cactus, and voila!
Via Facebook: Mac or PC?
Boxers or briefs? You answer first. I vowed never, ever, to own a PC or Microsoft product about 7 years ago and I’ve been a happy man ever since. Like any loyal Mac fan, I’ve got the iPhone, the iPad, the iMac, the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air. Whoops, did your computer just crash? Is that the blue screen of death that just appeared? Better get a Mac.
Via Email: My store now has the ability for shoppers to create an account and have their information saved via a login. Do you recommend enabling this feature?
I do. But with one caveat. I don’t like to be hit with a checkout that requires me to setup an account and I’m sure I’m not alone in that. To be sure you don’t want to increase the abandon rate, make sure your checkout allows shoppers to check out as a “guest” and they are given the option to create an account or not. Don’t force me into creating an account, it’s like forcing me to wear my seatbelt in the car. I just won’t do it.