The Laws of Business Don't Seem to Aplply to Amazon

Indecisi0n

Well-Known Member
When I was 17 I started a landscaping business. My best friend did the same. First year, my friend was spending his profits. Bought himself a nice used z28. Taking chicks out to dinner and going on ski trips. I bought more mowers. I was charging around $20 a half acre. My friend was charging $30 or more. I was showing a loss at year 1

Year 2, I bought a second truck and more mowers. My friend was spending profits like he had a nice stable business. I kept my prices the same, while he raised prices. Year 2 was chalked up as a loss.

Year 3, bought plows for the two beater trucks, put logos on the trucks and had company T-shirts made for my employees. Friend was still rocking his first truck, still spending money on personal enjoyment and raising prices. Gave me a hard time that I wasn't raising my prices. Year 3, yet another loss.

By the end of year 4, I had both trucks running running 6 days a week. Spare mowers, blowers and wackers in a public storage unit. And who was running one of the trucks? My friend. He went out of business. He was making more money working for me then he was during his last year of being in business. I lived off of delivering pizzas at night. Also used that for marketing, not that my employer knew. ;). Year 4, you guessed it....another loss.

I was on my way to getting a third truck and growing the business to the point where I was going to be able to raise prices 5%-10%, and still be cheaper then most lawn care businesses. Had an opportunity to start a new business and so I sold my lawn care business for a nice chunk of change. Who bought it? My friend. Borrowed the money from his well off parents. By year 6 he had a lot of toys including a jet ski but lost the business do to poor decisions.

That is my teenage story about a kid and a mower. Amazon is doing what I was doing but on a much grander scale.

They will do fine.

Buy your friend had more chicks than you.
 

sortaisle

Livin the cardboard dream
Amazon's business plan is working just fine. They started out as an online book store. Borders in now gone. Barnes and Noble got smart and went digital with the Nook. I'm not sure how Brookstone is still in business, but I assume airports help them out a lot as the only bookstore in most of them. But I do agree they can't be losing money every year. Soon they'll raise the prices of everything 1% and make a killing. They sell so so much that a modest increase will carry them over huge. I'm sure Black Friday and Cyber Monday make the year worthwhile to Amazon as well.
 
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