oth Ali and Amazon are sticking around for the near future, if not way longer. But they will get some new competititors. In Korea, for example, competitor Coupang just went public. In the US, Walmart has been aggressively retooling its entire business model to compete with Amazon. And other companies have been busting into the spaces in which Amazon struggles to compete.
Backmarket, for example, is a retail platform for used electronics. Backmarket fills a niche that Amazon can’t: Amazon has a really hard time developing filters that allow users to sift through the balance of quality, credibility, and price. It’s possible to create filters to help the end user sort through this. Amazon has done this, for example, for car parts. If I’m shopping for a car part, it’ll say, “oh, is this for your 2009 Honda Fit that you haven’t driven in three months?” And I begrudgingly say, yes, Jeff, it is.
There’s also the increasing backlash against companies like Amazon for unionbusting. While China has been accused of literally using slave labor, American consumers want cheap stuff, and this seems to trounce human rights considerations for the average consumer, at least until a major regulatory intervention comes along.
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