[onehipdad]

Believe me, I see it firsthand all the time. I travel 40 weeks a year, half in US/Canada and half in Europe/Asia. Small downtowns across America are dying or dead due to the one-two knockout punch of Walmart & Amazon. Go to England and small downtowns are vibrant: Stationery next to fabrics next to books next to hardware, etc. Same across Europe. There's probably no turning back, but if there were a way to regenerate town centers, the Trumpster will find it!

[dp0622]

A LOT of jobs created by Amazon and Walmart.

I like me free 2 day shipping, I like ordering online, I like rewards programs, and I dont see any laws being broken or capitalism not in action.

If they are too big and the government thinks they are a monopoly, then they should do what they need to do.

I can live without mom and pop.

[KC_Lion]

Don’t tug on Superman’s cape Bezos....

[Cowboy Bob]

Amazon and the other Internet companies had a great advantage in that there was no sales tax. They undercut all the brick and mortar retailers and drove them out of business.

[max americana]

I had a feeling Trump was gonna get Bezos. Trump never forgot those daily hit pieces by WAPO right before the elections and after. Just shows Trump waits to spring a trap when your enemy is complacent.

[Obadiah]

First off, there is no “free” 2-day shipping. There is either an annual fee or a monthly fee.

Second, I try to avoid the sales tax as well, but this has been an unfair loophole advantage.

Amazon is by far NOT the lowest price out there anymore. Frankly, I have been shocked that by shopping around both online and locally that many varied products I need and buy often are cheaper elsewhere. Amazon is no longer the best price location, sometimes by a lot.

Having said all that, all my funds are getting killed! Amazon, Facebook, Tesla. Kind of a beat-down going on right now and it’s painful to watch.

[Southern Magnolia]

Amazon already overextended themselves with the buying Whole Foods to move into groceries.

Amazon Prime customers (who already pay $100 bucks a year for “free” shipping) can get the “privileged” offer of a “Prime Pantry” program that charges an additional $18 bucks pr a $5 monthly fee for having groceries shipped. Not even specialty or fresh stuff, just a limited selection of the same dry goods you can pick up at any grocery. Quite a scam.

[PMAS]

Amazon is a problem because sooner or later they will be the only game in town and the prices go up, up, up

[TexasFreeper2009]

downtowns died in the 1970’s.

Amazon or no Amazon, we are never going back to small mom and pop stores selling saddles or whatever.

[ifinnegan]

Has Amazon ever turned a profit?

[Alas Babylon!]

While in the military I lived in Europe for almost a decade, first in Italy and then in Germany, with many, many trips to 100s of places in most of the continent.

My job from late 1991-1997 was shutting down military bases. I lead a team that turned off communication circuits, pulled equipment off of towers on mountains and antennas, collected classified equipment and processed it for reallocation or proper disposal—so I’ve been around those towns and villages with their many shops.

I can tell you those places are cool, but also have many drawbacks. First, they’re only open during business hours. A lot of these places have what we used to call bank hours. 9-5, Mon-Fri. If you need something after hours, you can’t get it.

Also, their prices were outrageous. And they all had a value added tax or VAT. The US Military could get the VAT tax back but it required a hella lot of paperwork that I often skipped (being on the road made it impossible to submit these to the Finance office).

Then again, you could haggle in some countries on the price, especially food. Sometimes we were in places that didn’t have any fast food or many restaurants so it was either the area’s single high-priced restaurant or buy some groceries and try to fix them yourself.

All the different shops are cute but many Americans simply don’t like to go out and visit a dozen different stores to get all there stuff. Shopping for stuff can take half a day.

Maybe that’s why Americans are so fat compared to many Europeans!

[az_gila]

Believe me, I see it firsthand all the time. I travel 40 weeks a year, half in US/Canada and half in Europe/Asia. Small downtowns across America are dying or dead due to the one-two knockout punch of Walmart & Amazon. Go to England and small downtowns are vibrant: Stationery next to fabrics next to books next to hardware, etc. Same across Europe. There's probably no turning back, but if there were a way to regenerate town centers, the Trumpster will find it!

---

I disagree on the hardware store bit...:^)

This was probably one of the last traditional, stuff in little bins, hardware stores in Liverpool -

Actually just up the street from the Beatles bus station on Penny Lane. It looks just the same now even with the same name, but this is the interior -

What else, a craft brew pub. :^)

Hardware has migrated to the big box B&Q (think Home Depot) stores, and the UK seems to have no national equivalent of ACE hardware stores.

Vibrant maybe, but off-licences, restaurants, chinese/indian/other take-away, hairdressers/nails, flower shops and coffee places.

[Chauncey Gardiner]

Sssh... listen and you’ll hear the money being sucked out of your communities due to amazon and the big boxes. Buy local when possible and keep your money local!

[cll]

Attention all veteran shoppers: Since November 11, 2017, anyone who holds a DD-214 or NGB-22, can shop at the online PX/BX, Aafes.com. Tax free and often with free shipping and no subscription fee.

That is all.

[VeniVidiVici]

Amazon is not the deal it once was. From free shipping to tax free sales, to really good prices to a great Amazon Prime deal. All that has started to slip away.

Really all that is left is convenience. And for many, that will go a long way.

[catnipman]

“Go to England and small downtowns are vibrant: Stationery next to fabrics next to books next to hardware, etc. Same across Europe.”

partially because retail commerce is extremely regulated by these socialist-type governments, dictating hours and days of operation, store size, and a million other parameters. It’s why everything costs at least twice as much in Europe for the average person and practically ALL of their retail service totally sucks.

I for one was glad to see the 3rd-generation mini-monopolies destroyed in my small town when the chains started to move in due to the population growth promoted by the local chamber of commerce, thinking they would get more business, when in fact they were cutting their own throats.

the little downtown stores were all highly insular and treated new-comers to the town like shit, which was ironic because they were always promoting rah-rah-sis-boom-bah growth and shop local campaigns in the local propaganda rag. Of course shopping local was a joke: they still focused on paper tape and ribbons for adding machines when people needed ink jet cartridges for the PC printers.

It was a breath of fresh air when professional retailers moved into town and killed the local political power brokers and the retail stores that formed their financial power base.

[lodi90]

Exclusive USPS sunday delivery for Amazon is an obvious place to start. USPS should not be playing favorites on delivery times.

[grateful]

Amazon (and every other business out there) only has to collect taxes in states in which they have a presence (nexus). Nexus determination is controlled by the Constitution under the Due Process and Commerce clauses. The government wants to change that and is going after Amazon first. Imagine being a small business with a presence in one state doing business online and having to set up your business to collect sales tax from the almost 10,000 sales tax jurisdictions in the US. It would be a pain for any business to have to do that, let alone a small business.

[Gene Eric]

>> Axios’ Jonathan Swan reported earlier today that Trump hates Amazon

Axios is a Comcast property, and so is NBC and MSNBC.

Comcast deserves no revenue from its conservative subscribers.

[MichaelCorleone]

Amen brother.

Speaking to your post, I myself try to and encourage others to buy local and bank local to keep the money in the community and stop feeding the globalist beast!

The fact that this President has this on his mind is a great testament to his character and pro-American leanings.

Full disclosure: I got the idea about buying and banking local from Gerald Celente, who writes the very popular TRENDS Journal.

It is his thinking, but I adopted it because it is right thinking, imo.

[mikhailovich]

Amazon is not just affecting box store retail or even mail order retail. They are now competing with huge distributors of paper and plastic, like Proctor and Gamble, Kimberly-Clark, etc. They are about to roll out their own line of diapers that can be ordered online and delivered to the front door.

Many different companies are starting to fear Amazon.