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Distribution Responds to TED Magazine’s AmazonSupply Story

By Scott Costa, Publisher, tED magazine

Last Thursday, February 5, www.tedmag.com posted this story about the new strategies of Jeff Bezos and AmazonSupply as he takes aim at wholesale distribution. While Bezos is stepping up his strategies, he is actually preparing for 10 years from now and beyond. Amazon continues to lose money, but at the same time is building an audience that, if he can maintain his efforts, will follow Amazon for the rest of their lives.

On Wednesay, February 11, tED magazine will host it’s monthly #tEDChat to discuss AmazonSupply and its latest strategies. We hope you will join us to give us your thoughts and to learn more about the innovations in our industry. All you have to do is go to www.twitter.com/tedmagazine at 1pm central time to follow along and tweet your thoughts. Make sure you use the #tedchat so everyone will be able to see your comments.

Meanwhile, our story last week received a number of comments. We are listing a few of them below.  If you would like to add your thoughts, you can add them at the bottom of this page or e-mail them to me at scosta@naed.org.

“Once again innovation is a smarter choice than aiming to be the low cost provider. Identify your target. Present the benefit to dealing with you. Make a clear offer. Make it easy to buy. Traditions are quickly falling by the wayside. There is no time for nostalgia in the fast paced constantly changing supply channel. Apple carts are getting upset across several industries! Those wondering what to do? How to compete? Dig deep and innovate or you will be remembering when.” – Joey Dalessio, Business Catalyst

“Not only is Bezos willing to ‘take a short-term loss on AmazonSupply’, but it is painfully apparent that millions of his investors have been willing as well. So many business owners I’ve discussed this with give it a casual dismissal. Whatever you are selling/marketing in your business, go to AmazonSupply or Amazon.com — I’ll bet that they (or their 3rd party affiliates) are merchandising your products online. And, they have an unrivaled scale that could eventually render you less – or completely – irrelevant.” – Jim Feltman, Principal, Macadam Floor and Supply

“We need to make sure this industry isn’t the next example (i.e. Borders, Blockbuster, Polaroid, Kodak, etc.) everyone uses to demonstrate that we didn’t see and seize the opportunity and got replaced by companies or alternate channels who did.” – Denise Keating, President DATAgility

“Are they laser focused on the next generation? McDonalds had two or three generations pre sold. IBM had two generations of IT pre sold. Budweiser (before Craft Beers) had four or five generations pre sold. Hmm….seems like there is a story here.” – Dirk Beveridge, Founder, UnLeashWD

AmazonSupply is going to continue forging ahead. It would not surprise me in the least if they add a B2B field sales organization down the road too!” – Mike Connors, CEO, Bulbs.com

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