Originally Posted by
Jenny3244
What is sad is when the large stores gobble up all the small stores and then the large stores leave you abandoned. Now the malls are dying...instead of going forward, we are going backward, think Sears & Roebuck catalog, ordering and waiting and hoping it's acceptable or you have the cost to return. now websites are the new catalogs, so as we age we have to keep up with computers and hostage to the always increasing internet fees. I get convenience, but we are losing our stores (small businesses)and soon it will be our money. Now Amazon is putting internet stores out of business or buying them, is it greed or what?... Soon they will deciding what we are allowed to buy, our only choice will be what they want us to have. And I thought Walmart was the worst of it -they are in trouble too! Call me old fashioned
Originally Posted by
joe'smom
Amazon reportedly treats their workers horribly, and they are ruthless in their business practices, like Wal-Mart, deliberately lowering prices to put smaller places out of business. Amazon and Wal-Mart have been devastating to smaller businesses in this country, just like massive factory farms have been devastating to smaller family farms. Bigger is not necessarily better, and personally, I would not call this trend 'progress.'
Okay, devil's advocate here.
First, not all shops are being "gobbled up" by the Big Evil Amazon. Amazon actually allows
thousands of shops to post their items for sale via Amazon.com. It's like a huge online mall in one place. Amazon charges these shops a small percentage, which is a bargain if you think about the costs a small business incurs of hosting, marketing, and maintaining their own website.
Second, as far as I'm concerned "malls are dying" is a good thing! The malls (at least in my region of the country) are horrible. They are nothing more than unsupervised gathering places for teenage shenanigans and the parking lots are crime-riddled. They don't offer much in the way of choice either. A lot of vendors are pulling out and the stores are being replaced by medical & dental offices, library branches, job centers, and there's even a tattoo parlor in my local mall.
Third, Amazon is "deciding what we are allowed to buy"??? The exact same thing can be said of the brick-and-mortar stores,
especially the small ones. They simply do not have the shelf space for the amazing amount of inventory our wonderful country has to offer. I think more often than not people turn to shopping online simply because they cannot find what they want at their local small businesses.