Monday, November 27, 2017

Consumerism! Welcome to the Amazon

What is brand value? Take two pieces of A4 paper size paper and distribute between yourself and a friend. Following which approach any willing candidate and make it your goal to get them to take your paper over your friends identical paper. During which your friend will be doing the same of course. The fact that one is selected, and the other is not selected is the difference in brand value. At this point maybe consider if that friend is the right friend for you given the outcome of the sale. If the need is there people will buy. Now you can go and create the need or/and you can fill the need  but thats a different topic. Reverting to brand value, how to you create brand value it if both products are identical. If there is no benefit when you compare one to the other how can a persons opinion be influenced. Because human psyche, thats how. We are in a chase of equality (equilibrium) however internally we are at a constant state of inequality. Information is filtered out as our mind sees fit, judgement are made quicker than blinks, and with all of that we make decisions to the best of our KNOWLEDGE. Thus, do not get filtered out, make it something interesting and you are in that final selection.

If you have agreed with me to this point you, lets press on. What was the first thing you bought from amazon? For me it was a book. Terry goodkind The Sword of Truth. Man, I was so ecstatic. I was finally able to find the full set! And the price was less than what I saw at the store. And I was finally able to find the full set! This is important because unlike an apple, each book is a piece of art. Thus, unlike apples it is literally impossible for every book to be available at one location. Personally, going into a library or a bookstore is overwhelming. How is one supposed to filter through the vast number of authors and works? Welcome Amazon, the place that carries a billion books, but you can find the one that you are looking for with a click of a button. Yes, your thirst of knowledge can be finally quenched. Do you want a first edition book? Well they have one 5000 miles away and it will can be here in a week. If its out of stock, well maybe I will wish for it and if I wish hard enough look its back in stock. Welcome to Just in time inventory. Why print thousands of copies if you know only a few hundred want it. Produce in batches of efficiency and restock when you see/except the proper demand. If you can do it with books why not other things. And thus, a small retailer can take their business global without worrying about distribution. Like any good returns business, the intermediary (amazon) connects the supplier, to the distributor, and to the consumer and just takes a small cut for creating the link. And like any intermediary over time this provides leverage, ie. Banks.

So here is the chart that inspired this series, there will be more to come. 


Chart sourced from (https://www.ft.com/__origami/service/image/v2/images/raw/http%3A%2F%2Fcom.ft.imagepublish.prod-us.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fc35bc4e0-cf14-11e7-b781-794ce08b24dc?source=next&quality=highest&width=700)