Is a $5 gift card really worth it?
In a previous post, I lamented on Amazon’s recent behavior of incenting their customers to scan ISBN numbers of product (in this case books) and receive a gift card for $5. Is a $5 gift card really worth it the actions the Citizen Shopper puts into motion? Acts like these destroy small businesses which determine the health of not only our communities but the country as a whole. Sure, it’s important for national and global companies to thrive, just like it’s important for Sequoias to have adequate conditions to grow. But Sequoias don’t grow without a lush forest floor. If you don’t also tend to the forest floor, the tall trees have nothing to build upon.
The NYTimes seems to agree in their op-ed piece: Amazon’s Jungle Logic.
The article covered the predictable topics, but the comments were most interesting and ran the gamut.
There was the Statesmen’s Response from Raymond De Angelis in the Bronx:
Churchill once wrote that you could count on Americans to do the right thing after they’ve tried everything else. So not we will try a world without human interaction before we realize how precious it is. To the lady who browses books on the computer after the kids are in bed. I can empathize. But how about an alternative – introduce them to books, to the magic of a library or good bookstore with book on the shelves. My kids love the library and Bank Street Boookstore in New York; to them this is fun and something they look forward to. The New York public libraries recently installed automatic check out stations. Interestingly, most people still go to the librarians. People want an interaction. Amazon has a place, it should not BE the place. I use Amazon to read the reviews and then buy the product locally. After all, sauce is for the goose AND gander.
There was the Free-Market response from Govanni in Oakland, CA:
These are the risks of capitalism. Middle men are becoming less necessary, and unless they can compete they will not be in business…People who still use “c.c.” and have actually used carbon paper are not in the demographic.. Brick and mortar stores will not go away but what they sell and how they market it will change.. Amazon sells stuff cheaper and good service,and like Sears or Montgomery Wards used to do, delivers it right to your door. Get over it …eliminating the middle man except under special circumstances is a capital idea.
There was the Wake-Up-This-Isn’t-New response from Andrew in Brooklyn, NY:
This article simply describes a new mechanism to perform what I’ve been doing for years: I carry my phone into bookstores, browse the books that look interesting, look them up on Amazon, find the predictably lower prices, and order. With Amazon Prime, I get them shipped to me for free and have them within 48 hours. Unless, of course, I Kindle the books right there on the spot. Brick and mortar shops cannot compete with this. Is this relationship between Amazon and brick and mortar shops parasitic? You bet. Do I care? No. Therein lies the deeper problem. The accumulation of these simple purchase decisions has a lasting, local consequence that I don’t account for in my myopic individual purchases. Unless there’s a way to present measurable impact to me along the way, there will be an unstoppable slide from my role as citizen (concerned with complex human and environmental values) to that of mere consumer (greedily seeking short-range optimizations without a view to the outside). The game needs to change. How do we implement consciousness raising in such a way as to seem natural to our deep-seated habits, yet become disruptive to them so that we keep what we naturally value in the horizon of our lives (and those of our children)?
The Most-Honest-&-Direct or Take-A-Look-At-Yourself from Miketcha in Higganum CT:
Whether it’s Amazon, Walmart, or the local stores in your community. The discussion here is about stuff. The unrelenting need for Americans in particular to buy more stuff, to have more money to buy more stuff, and to collect more stuff than they know what to do with. While people may elevate books and music to some higher plane of stuff, I would bet that a year or two later most people won’t remember the books they read, other than some fleeting moment of pleasure. Each year hundreds of formalistic books, CDs are produced and sold that at best rise to mediocrity. How many of us have books on shelves that sit there year after year read or not read? In your pursuit of happiness, find another way that doesn’t involve stuff. Maybe watching George Carlin on Stuff will help: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=we…
And to round it all out, your Yes-Everyone-The-Most-Successful-.com-Has-Run-Out-Of-Ideas from Brucejquiller in Chicago:
Amazon has been in business for about 16 years. They offer the lowest price on everything, not just books. I do not believe their business model is sustainable. I believe Bezos knows his entire business is a con-job, so he is working feverishly to figure out angls that will actually make the company profitable. The “angles” mainly hinge on digital services, e-books being, ultimately, a small part of this plan.
But what all of the folks missed was that if bookstores are “being replaced” it’s because the online realm can more efficiently handle that one-dimensional experience: selling a wide variety of titles cheaply. This throws a challenge to the booksellar: adapt or die. Some chose to die. Other put in a coffee shop, did poetry slams, had book signings, lectures, or became fun event spaces. Some chose to evolve into that third space. And it’s a hard transition that requires a different set of skills.
Have most done this? Would a site like Amazon, that is interested in # of transactions, ever look into doing this (or could they do it successfully)? The jury is still out.
