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'A Major Distraction': Is A Megadeal Like Amazon's HQ2 Always Worth It?
Thursday marks the deadline for bids in Amazon's highly publicized search for the location of its second headquarters, dubbed HQ2. Cities are clamoring to land the conglomerate's project and its unparalleled promise of up to 50,000 jobs paying an average of $100,000, at one of the world's fastest-growing companies.
But with that comes some public soul-searching: How much should a city or state subsidize a wealthy American corporation in exchange for such a shiny promise? [...] Financial incentives are among numerous criteria Amazon included in its solicitation of bids. [...] By multiple estimates, Amazon has already cashed in on more than $1 billion in taxpayer-funded subsidies and incentives for its warehouses, data centers and other operations.
[...] "I often thought, as governor, it would be sort of nice, if all the governors just got together and said, 'Look, we're just not going to play this anymore,' " says former Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle. Doyle was at the helm during the financial crisis in 2008, when General Motors shuttered plants, including a factory in Janesville, Wis. But later, the automaker said it would reopen one location, bringing back the jobs. Wisconsin put together its largest incentive package yet — Doyle says he felt an obligation to — but it lost to Michigan's even bigger offer. [...] Since then, Wisconsin has become infamous for its eye-popping $3-billion financial incentive to get a Foxconn liquid-crystal display plant.
Previously: Amazon to Invest $5 Billion in Second HQ Outside of Seattle
Cities Desperate to Become the Location of Amazon's "Second Headquarters"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 20 2017, @03:39PM (6 children)
Not sure what "much higher" is, but with Amazon there is some modicum of customer support / vendor vetting that isn't there on Aliexpress.
If, for instance, I was buying an e-bike motor, and I could get it on Amazon for $700 or likely the same thing on Aliexpress for $500 - I _might_ just use Amazon for the warm fuzzy of thinking that they care if I get burned on this deal or not and therefore I'm less likely to end up unhappy with the purchase.
If I was buying 100 e-bike motors and could do some test purchases and direct negotiation with the vendor, I'd definitely choose the Aliexpress route, or possibly just direct vendor dealing if they're interested in that for a $50K deal.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday October 20 2017, @04:43PM (1 child)
Aliexpress isn't for buying 100 e-bike motors, it's for buying small quantities. It's an alternative to buying the exact same thing on Ebay or Amazon from the same Chinese seller, or buying the exact same thing from some guy in the US who bought a container of such things and is reselling them. If you're looking to buy stuff in bulk and resell it, you usually go to Alibaba.com.
Honestly, I haven't seen much on Amazon as for as "vendor vetting". They'll let anyone sell on there, no questions asked. There's countless fly-by-night sellers on there that I've seen that are selling cheap Chinese stuff one month, and disappeared the next. I'm sorry, I just don't buy this idea that Amazon has customer service worth paying extra for. Aliexpress has built-in dispute resolution stuff too; I haven't had to use it yet, but I don't see how it could be any worse than Amazon's or Ebay's. The thing that's nice about Aliexpress (and also Ebay) is that it's very clear where the seller is located. Amazon hides this completely; you can only tell by looking at the shipping time on the checkout page after you've gone through all the trouble of going through the checkout process. If you want to specifically avoid Chinese vendors in a product search, it's impossible. On Ebay, you just click "North America only" or "US only". On Aliexpress, you just don't use the site.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 20 2017, @09:02PM
I suppose Amazon has "bought some loyalty" from me by instantly reverting all the e-purchases my kids have made on the Kindle... I've never really had a vendor dispute through Amazon yet, so that's another source of my confidence. I assume both Amazon and Aliexpress have extensive "how we help you if there's a problem" written policies, but I _feel_ like Amazon might have something to lose if I walk away as a customer, Aliexpress not so much.
EBay and I had a problem back in the 1990s, I walked away from eBay and didn't look back for 20+ years - I think I might have bought 2 things through eBay in the past 5 years, and nothing in the 20 years before that. Before the problem, I was starting to become a habitual customer, 2-3 transactions per month on average. I'm sure I'm not the only one, just as I'm sure there's not enough of us to sink eBay, but there are enough to reduce their profits.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday October 23 2017, @12:28PM (3 children)
I've bought stuff on Amazon before and had it never show up and contacted support and it never got resolved and I never got the product and never got my money back. Amazon doesn't actually offer that much protection...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 23 2017, @02:20PM (2 children)
If they piss you off bad enough, you really should shut down your Amazon purchasing activity and take your business elsewhere.
As a family, we've been placing about 100 orders a year with Amazon for the past 10+ years, and used them ever since they started, so far we've been satisfied with any dispute situations we've encountered - most satisfied that the disputes have been very rare.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Monday October 23 2017, @03:24PM (1 child)
Haven't closed my account yet, but I do always try to find what I'm looking for elsewhere now and only order from Amazon as a last resort. Usually get stuff faster that way too...Amazon shipping is the slowest I've ever encountered!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 23 2017, @05:11PM
Funny, my most common discomfort with Amazon shipping is that they promise it in 5-8 days and it arrives in 2 which has caused me anxiety more than once when I ordered a laptop for work and it was left sitting on my doorstep while I was out of town (luckily, our doorstep is pretty protected from the world.)
I do experience those super-long lead times when getting some stuff that's sourced directly from Asia, but for things like that if I'm in any kind of a hurry I usually use DigiKey or similar sources instead. My latest long-lead Amazon purchase was a bag of 30 vinyl coated spring clips, I think it was something trivial like $4 with free shipping and that did take nearly 2 months to arrive, but... it's not like my potato chips were getting stale waiting for the clips to arrive.
🌻🌻 [google.com]