Rusp#9532

I'm going to have to report you to the F.B.I.

k

AH

ESSAY

I have finished my essay

Would you like to proof read my essay, Max?

it's over 2k characters

why did i not expect that

okay i wrote this while listening to a killstream

so if you find any nazi propaganda please tell me

The Toll of Amazon on Small Business Before the days of online shopping, those who were not close to large chain stores would, more often than not, have to rely on the small local businesses around them. These are the types of businesses that would usually be locally owned and run by people in the community. When it came to buying niche items, toys, and hobby related items, these small locally owned businesses were really your only choice. Recently though, with the creation of Amazon, these small businesses have been rendered obsolete. Many of them have sadly gone out of business, due to their inability to compete with the convenience and seemingly infinite catalogue of this corporate giant. Despite there being a large amount of evidence against them, there are people who argue that Amazon is actually beneficial to small businesses. While it is true that they can help some small businesses by helping them ship out their products, those seem to be the exception, and certainly not the rule. They tend to just completely outsell small businesses and almost completely and utterly antiquate them. While some believe that Amazon can help small businesses, there is much more evidence to prove that Amazon is actually more of a detriment to them. The main point for Amazon being bad for small businesses is, very obviously, the fact that it is impossible for them to really compete with Amazon. Before the days of Amazon, small businesses were a very common thing. Ever since Amazon’s rise to power though, It feels like there are less and less of these small, independently owned businesses out there because they know that is is impossible to compete with the convenience of online shopping. The once great

entrepreneur spirit of America has been slightly dimmed by Amazon’s monopoly like hold on almost all types of shopping. In an effort to try and make themselves look better, Amazon released a “small business impact report” detailing what they are saying is growth in small businesses thanks to Amazon. In this report written by Jeff Wilke, the chief executive of Amazon, he says that, “Amazon helps small and medium-sized businesses reach hundreds of millions of customers around the world, giving the smallest of businesses the opportunity to compete next to the biggest household brands.” While this may be true for the few lucky businesses that are fortunate enough to get chosen as a partner by Amazon, it certainly isn’t the case for most businesses, who actually get the short end of the stick when it comes to this deal. The people who aren’t fortunate enough to get chosen by Amazon actually end up losing business to these small businesses that Amazon decides to prop up. In Gene’s Mark article on this topic, he mentions that “Bill Simon and Gerald Storch, the former chief executives of Walmart and Hudson’s Bay, respectively, also say that the retailing giant has put many other retailers out of business. Simon even suggested that Congress look into splitting up Amazon to help contain its growing influence.” This, coming from two people who would obviously be very informed on businesses and their inner workings, is very telling. Not only are they suggesting that Amazon is putting people out of business, they even go as far as to say that they think Amazon should be split up to help reduce it’s colossal reach.

Another main reason for people arguing that Amazon is destroying small businesses is that Amazon’s convenience is almost unbeatable. You can order something from Amazon from the comfort of your own home. Not only that, it can be packaged and shipped to your house in only a single day! When that option is available, why would anyone ever feel the need to go inside of a store? It is so much easier to just order it online and wait for it to come in the next day! It is sadly making things like toy stores, video game shops, and hobby centers things of the past. Places that were once places of wonder for the young, and places of escape for the old, are being turned into relics of the past. As Robb Mandelbaum of Forbes puts it, “To be sure, Amazon, with relatively low prices and speedy home delivery made possible by its enormous scale, has changed the way many Americans shop. My wife, for example, would be content to never set foot in a store again. Every week, a parade of boxes from Amazon, Target, and elsewhere arrive at our door.” This is a sentiment not exclusive to Mandelbaum’s wife, in fact, according to research done by TechCrunch, about 35% of people would prefer to shop online then in an actual physical store. This is a number that has been rapidly growing overtime, especially as Amazon has been able to lower prices to be equal, and even sometimes lower, than products found inside physical stores. It doesn’t help that some people are also willing to pay more money for a product for the convenience of it being delivered directly to the door

This means that even if a small business were able to lower their prices beyond that of Amazon’s, they would still be losing business from those who simply prefer the convenience of online shopping over going to physical stores. What else can a business possibly do if lowering its prices isn’t even enough to get them the customer? Small businesses almost stand no chance against Amazon; how are you supposed to compete with a business that is more convenient, and even in some cases has lower prices then you can afford to put out. It’s an unfair and unwinnable game that has snubbed out many up-and-coming businesses before they ever even had a chance to reach their full potential. A main counterpoint commonly used to portray Amazon as a helpful tool for small businesses is that Amazon sometimes partners with small business owners to sell their products. While this is indeed true, it ruins the chances of other small businesses who deal in the same business as the ones partnered with Amazon. Not only that, but Amazon actually tends to cut these businesses bad deals. Rhonda Abrams of USA Today points this out in her article when she writes, “It's important for makers and small businesses creating consumer products to control the pricing of their products, or big retailers like Amazon or Walmart will set your market pricing for you,” advises Jules Pieri, co-founder and CEO of The Grommet. “Makers are ecstatic when they get a call from a buyer from Amazon or Walmart, but they are notorious for setting prices that are unsustainable for manufacturers.” It is clear that Amazon does indeed

no

i keep losing my place

help some small businesses, but even when it comes to the ones that they are helping, they sometimes cut these small business owners terrible deals. So, while there is definitely an argument for as to why Amazon could possibly be helping small businesses, I feel that it is not nearly as strong of an argument, nor do I think that it has remotely as much non-Amazon produced evidence supporting it. Ever since Amazon had started its rise to power, many small businesses had been able to avoid be overshadowed by them by filling their own niches. Tech stores offered tech support, book stores had people who would help you find interesting books, and so on. These things used to be out of the realm of a faceless corporate giant such as Amazon, as it was not really a physical company. As time moves forward though, Amazon is looking to spread its reach farther. It has invested in hiring tech supporters, as well as building physical bookstores. These services were some of the only thing keeping some of these small businesses relevant, but now, Amazon has begin to try and monopolize even these things. As Kate Taylor, Mary Hanbury, and Dennis Green of Business Insider put it, “Barnes & Noble reported in January that sales dropped 6.4% during the holiday season. E-commerce sales also suffered during the critical period, dropping 4.5%. Amazon has also grown its physical bookstore presence.” If Amazon has affect one of the largest Bookstore chains, Barnes & Nobles, so drastically, immagine what kind of damage it could be inflicting on the average small, independent bookstore owners across the country and even the world.

Kate Taylor, Mary Hanbury, and Dennis Green also had this to say when it came to Amazon’s branching off into tech support “While Best Buy has been under siege by Amazon for years, the electronics retailer long had one advantage: the Geek Squad of employees ready to help customers with technical difficulties. However, in July 2017, Amazon started rolling out a sort of Geek Squad of its own, in the form of Smart Home Consultations.” This will most likely have a huge effect on the business of not just Best Buy, but of many of the smaller tech support based companies as well. This new found branching off of Amazon into even more types of businesses will most likely spell doom for many of the small business owners who had relied on these niches. In conclusion, while Amazon can help select businesses, it hurts many others who are passed over by them because they can not afford to sell their products for as cheap as some of the bigger businesses partnered with Amazon.. Amazon is impossible to compete with if you are just a small business owner, they have prices that are impossible to match if you are trying to make a profit, as they can always find the producers who are willing to sell their products for the cheapest. They also already have a monopoly on a majority of products out there, as Amazon is easy to use, affordable, and convenient for almost everyone.

thanks max

i really just went back and typed random shit until I hit the page number

this is how my teacher told me to do it

alright

something something college writing

that's what i got on my essay for the ap thing funnily enough

though on the "reading compehension" i got a 112

I'm not good at writing

well

collegiate writing

I can write fan fiction

the ending paragraph is 100% the worst

i just gave up and started writing down filler

oh i forgot this

Although Amazon alleges that it attempts to help by giving small businesses a platform to sell their products on to reach a wider audience, it often attempts to give these business owners bad deals in an attempt to maximize profits. Amazon is also taking steps towards controlling as well as monopolizing even more of the niches out there, going as far as to take on things such as technical support, as well as creating physical bookstores for people to buy books from. Amazon is sadly spelling the end for many of the small businesses around the world, and it is most likely preventing some people from even thinking about creating their own businesses. These are the primary reasons as to why I believe that Amazon is a negative for small businesses as opposed to a positive force that helps them out.

hey i've gotten a 100% on one of my essays in this class

though on the other ones

not so much

I still need to do citations

good thing i never close tabs

if i do that i'll lose my train of though

my brain is very one tracked

I'll make sure to tell you guys what I got on this essay

I clearly have a thesis statement

my teacher said so!

I don't think my teacher is fit to grade/teach on a collegiate level

holy shit

what the fuck

50?

I can pass with a 50?

that's pretty epic

don't tell bio