Is Amazon becoming a victim of its own game?
Credit: Ridofranz, https://www.francescoridolfi.com/

Is Amazon becoming a victim of its own game?

In a recent story published by Melissa Cantor of LinkedIn News and first reported by Theo Wayt of The Information, it was revealed Amazon is axing some free returns to UPS Stores, and will now charge a nominal fee. Despite still offering free returns to multiple locations, it appears Amazon is trying to reign that in a bit and funnel customers back to its own internal network (via Whole Foods) or at its partner, Kohl's, if a customer is within a designated proximity.

?While the UPS Store returns offered more convenience for Prime customers, reverse logistics definitely comes at a cost, and costs for expedited shipping have yet to return to pre-pandemic rates - and they may never. Processing returns takes time, for the store, transportation, and distribution center employees processing the returns. The $1 fee is a chance to recoup some of those costs. And while Amazon Prime fees have increased by 50% over the past few years, Amazon's network growth and transactions outpaced that, thanks largely in part to the pandemic. We are currently going through a market correction, and while it's much slower than the demand that drove prices up, companies are experiencing the impact of that now and are adjusting through re-sizing and other costing factors.

?Retail consumers' need for immediate gratification has been largely instilled by Amazon Prime. The enticement of 2-day shipping, 1-day shipping, and now same-day shipping is what drove most consumers to Prime. Amazon accompanied this with a very easy return policy to calm customers' initial fears as online shopping was first emerging. The ability to purchase an item at any time of the day or night (even after a few glasses of wine) and knowing you could easily return it if it didn't fit or realizing maybe it wasn't the best decision is what helped push Amazon to the top in the retail game. Amazon has long pushed its competition to continuously innovate and change the way they do business to maintain wallet share and profitability, and now too, Amazon has been forced to make changes to remain profitable...because of Amazon.

要查看或添加评论,请登录

社区洞察

其他会员也浏览了