2014/01/13/Amazon Has Jedi Mind-Tricked You Into Forgetting It's Pretty Much Walmart
- when: 2014/01/13
- author: Dino Grandoni
- source: Huffington Post
- topics: Amazon.com Wal-Mart Jeff Bezos
- keywords
- link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/13/amazon-vs-walmart n 4589724.html
- title: Amazon Has Jedi Mind-Tricked You Into Forgetting It's Pretty Much Walmart
- summary: Amazon.com is the best-loved company in America, despite being very similar to one of the least-loved companies in America: Walmart.
Yet the closer you look, the more Amazon begins to look like Walmart. Working conditions at the warehouses that make magical same-day delivery possible are starting to get scrutiny. In recent years, there have been media reports of warehouse workers fainting from heat exhaustion, with air-conditioning installed only many months later. Some U.S. employees are suing, claiming that they have not been paid for work or that Amazon employs tactics to avoid paying unemployment benefits. German colleagues went on strike over Christmas.
And while Walmart crushed its smaller competition, Amazon chief Jeff Bezos can be just as ruthless against upstart online stores. According to the new book "The Everything Store" by Bloomberg Businessweek reporter Brad Stone, Bezos tried to buy Diapers.com in 2009. When rebuffed, Amazon warned the co-founders that it would get into the diaper business. Soon after, Amazon undercut Diapers.com's prices. When Walmart later made an offer to buy the site, Amazon reps warned the startup that Bezos "was such a furious competitor that he would drive diaper prices to zero if they sold to Bentonville."
Diapers.com sold to Amazon at the end of 2010.