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Ask HN: How can an ecommerce business compete with Amazon?

18 points by techsin101 ↗ HN
It seems to me that there is reaaaally no way a regular ecommerce business compete on anything with Amazon. I'd love to know.

- Prices: amazon brand has lowest prices

- Own shipping infrastructure.. cost-- and speed++

- Customer support.. although not best but always available

so you can get things faster, cheaper and easier than going on any other site...

There is really no hope for ecommerce business, is there?

Only ways I can see...

- own brand and then don't sell it on amazon.

- provide UI functionality that is ultra specialized for a certain niche.. newegg vs amazon

that's it...

but that leaves a large market out of reach...

how do you compete with a company that is completely vertically integrated

in physical realm you have geography working for you. online is like one mall. every fish either becomes the largest wish in its category or is reduced to a stall in corner.

18 comments

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phendrenad2
1. Sell on Amazon

2. Include a card with the order that says "Get 15% your next order if you use <your website>.com

3. Hope there's enough repeat business.

durnygbur
I receive dozens of 10-15% discount coupons for overpriced vine-, tie-, and whatnot sets, for the yet another streaming service. These things land straight in the trash bin.
karmakaze
Also a note about directly supporting the business and/or spreading the word if they're a happy customer. I'm always in favour of supporting companies that have made products or conduct business in ways that I appreciate.
pontus
By not being an Amazon clone. If you want to sell a lot of different types of items in a searchable way for low prices with fast shipping, you're probably going to have a hard time.

If you want to compete with Amazon, you'll have to do something different. Maybe go high-end, maybe go the curated route, maybe sell experiences, maybe make it a dedicated secret Santa site...

hitsurume
If by compete, you mean "beat" Amazon, that isn't going to happen. If you mean "compete" as in "make a living selling stuff online", you can compete very well against Amazon, as well as any other online retailer. You need a solid product that people want to buy, and carve your niche.
speedgoose
User experience for example. The Amazon online store looks like a large supermarket and it's full of (very) crappy products. A online store focusing on high-quality products with a nice presentation may have a small market.
b15h0p
I like this idea. I'm sick of wading through thousands of products with fake reviews when shopping for something outside my field of expertise. Amazon's own recommendation ("Amazon's choice", iirc) is just algorithmic bullshit and the ratings cannot be trusted.

Give me a shop that gives me a couple of hand-selected products for any given category and makes absolutely sure that I do not get counterfeit products. Couple that with great and personal service and I'm happy to pay a premium over Amazon.

atmosx
Orthogonally, I hate the fact that non-fake reviews generate value for the walled-garden that is Amazon. Reviews should be in a neutral platform that can be integrated in various stores and info is interchangeable... But that doesn't solve the fake reviews problem.
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robric
From a technical standpoint you need to get off monolithic platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce, and even Salesforce and Oracle Commerce Cloud. These platforms stifle growth and present limitations for scaling.

What you need is something called a headless, mircroservices-based, API-first e-commerce architecture. A mouthful, I know. Fortunately there is some OSS and SaaS that makes adopting it easy. For OSS check out https://www.vendure.io/; for SaaS check out https://www.fabric.inc

The reason Amazon is able to scale so quickly and add new channels and features so quickly is because of their innovative technology and approach to technology management (e.g. two pizza teams).

techsin101
I'm almost completely sure application scalability is at the bottom of list. How do you offer 1 day shipping and have lowest price?
[dead] lawwantsin17
Amazon skims off everyone and offers slower, less secure services than just DIY. Amazon PaaS is a scam. Break em up.
Bad_dad_E3
The kryptonite is by using the two things Amazon is destroying smashing everything in its way. The smaller competition/businesses and the people who need to be making more money to keep shopping, and you combine them into one network. Amazing is a network of products that everyone has searched for and someone has added if it wasn’t already there. Find the businesses that need to sell a product to stay alive and I bet they will make the sale at the price it needs to be made to pay you and the user. Example coming soon
Trias11
Guarantee of legitimacy of products and offer best prices.

Study BHPhoto. If BH carrying thing i need - I buy it from there knowing that quality, service and support is there.

Amazon peddling fakes products and fake reviews and does nothing about it. That's their weak spot. Fill it in.