What are Jacksonville's chances at landing Amazon?

[thelakelander]

Amidst widespread speculation that Amazon is looking to place a fulfillment center operation somewhere in Florida, one has to consider what Jacksonville’s chances are of landing one of the mega-deals.

full article: http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/blog/2012/10/what-are-jacksonvilles-chances-at.html

[funwithteeth]

Cool, maybe my Prime account will go from two-day to one-day delivery.

[Tacachale]

If that happens we should also be able to collect sales tax off them so they won't have an unfair advantage in the marketplace.

[ben says]

Cool, maybe my Prime account will go from two-day to one-day delivery.

We can dream

[funwithteeth]

He was being sarcastic about my comment about benefiting from possibly faster delivery, not about this benefiting the city as a whole

EDIT: In reference to deleted I-10east post.

[I-10east]

Oops, my fault, time to delete the comment.

[jph]

Interesting article in Mother Jones about what it's like to work at an un-named fulfillment center. There are a few links within the article itself to similar stories at other places.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor

[Ocklawaha]

Hopefully not all warehousing jobs operate on a *BF&I method.

What I don't get is the real estate listing has a line that says 'RAIL - Not Available.'  REALLY kind of weird since there are railroad tracks a few hundred feet away to the Southeast or to the South, or to the Southwest, or a couple of miles West, and a couple of miles Northwest. Wonder if they have ever heard of laying track?

*BF&I Method - Brute Force and Ignorance. A common infirmity in high production jobs, factories, manual labor or federal jobs.

[cityimrov]

If that happens we should also be able to collect sales tax off them so they won't have an unfair advantage in the marketplace.

How does a company located thousands of miles away have an unfair advantage over a business located next door?

[tufsu1]

If that happens we should also be able to collect sales tax off them so they won't have an unfair advantage in the marketplace.

How does a company located thousands of miles away have an unfair advantage over a business located next door?

umm...by not charging (or paying) 7% in sales tax

[If_I_Loved_you]

I hope Jacksonville Florida lands a Mega Amazon warehouse. But lets not forget Amazon isn't always the lowest price when it comes to a lot of items, even with the sales tax nor is Chinamart aka Walmart. More jobs for Jacksonville if Amazon comes and this is all we should really care about.

[Ocklawaha]

Jobs! Agreed! That should be our goal.

For decades most mail order houses have NOT paid sales tax except in the cases of 'in state' orders. So an order from Jax or Orlando WOULD pay sales tax, but someone in Georgia wouldn't. This is why you hear the infomercials saying something like 'Florida residents please include 7% state sales tax.'

I wouldn't worry over a warehouse slavery issue. The employee ALWAYS knows two things the boss doesn't: They know how hard they intend to work, and they know when they'll walk out the back door. It's a seldom used advantage.

[ronchamblin]

The bottom of the article showed a quote from one of the head sharks at Amazon…. Amazon “has sought to create thousands of jobs in Florida, but the state’s government hasn’t shown much interest,” said Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global public policy, told WSJ in July. “Without Florida’s leadership, these thousands of jobs will be created in another state.”

Of course one of our (our bookstores) competitors is Amazon, and other Internet vendors selling books online.  We’ve managed to survive and build up to 22 employees through our hard work, along with my hourly prayers.   

We have certain advantages which have allowed us to survive and even grow during the competitive environment of emerging e- books and Internet venders. 

But let nobody kid you, these Amazon fellows are sharks, brutal to the core, aided by unfair legislation giving them advantages over the brick and mortar stores.  I will tell you a brief story, which will explain why I say this.

During the late nineties, when Amazon became aggressive in the book business, somebody there repeatedly  phoned me for about a year, attempting to get us to list on Amazon our online inventory of about 15,000 titles.  I resisted, always desiring to be independent as much as possible, which is why I own all of the retail and warehouse buildings used in our bookstores.  After a while they stopped bothering me.

Well, somewhere around 2002, one of our customers encouraged us to “try” Amazon.  Always desiring to sell directly from the shelves when possible, we had nevertheless been listing selected, somewhat pricey books online via ABEBOOKS, which is now owned by the sharks of Amazon.  So, I relented, and said…. go ahead and upload to Amazon.  I had a young fellow working the listings and shipping at the time.  Well, we received so many orders from our newly uploaded titles that he became overwhelmed. 

The problem was that he failed to tell me of the situation, and secretly simply “cancelled” or ignored the orders.  Within weeks, our “fulfillment” level was perhaps into the 80’s, which was below the criteria set by Amazon.  Because of this, Amazon cancelled our ability to list, which did not concern me too much because we had other options.  I did not discover at first that one or two of my employees, perhaps afraid to inform me of this cancel event attempted to explain what happened to Amazon so that these fellows might reinstate the account.  Once I discovered this “groveling” behavior, which I would not do in a million years to anyone or any company, I informed everyone to back off, and forget about Amazon, which we have to this day.

The only problem was Amazon had about $16,000 of our money, which they said that they would “keep” until all possibilities of “returns” were gone.  The cancellation occurred in November, they kept the $16,000 until perhaps March, long after all orders were stabilized.  After repeated letters and phone calls, they finally sent a check for the amount.  There were no refunds.  As for the young fellow, he left, realizing that he failed us.  And to be honest, his failure was partly my fault, as I didn't monitor "things" enough.  I was busy with other things.

The point is that the sharks were, in my view, hoping that we, one of their largest “competitors” in the southeast, were weak financially, and that their “holding” of funds just might put us under.  We were not weak, nor are we weak now.

These Amazon fellows are cancerous on our economy, brutal to all, and have gained unfairly for over two decades by having the great advantage over the brick and mortar stores throughout the nation by being able to offer sales without charging sales tax, thereby being advantaged over the locals all over the country.  This is just one reason why Amazon has grown so phenomenally over the years.  This sales tax advantage is finally being overturned by our legislators, in spite of the lobbying paid for by Amazon to prevent it.  Our lobbied legislators, by their slow reaction, have already allowed thousands of brick and mortar stores to go under, some pushed over the edge by this sales tax disadvantage.  Unfortunately the unfair legislation has already destroyed so many brick and mortar stores that it perpetuates the advantage to Amazon, by the very fact that there are fewer Brick and mortar stores to compete with them.  The harm has been done. 

So, back to the quote at the beginning of this post, wherein the Amazon shark is stating how “Florida’s” government doesn’t want to “create” thousands of jobs in Florida, and that they will simply be created in another state, I say to the shark, f@*k off as*#ole, as the process of bringing Amazon into Florida will destroy many thousands of local Florida jobs by putting brick and mortar stores out of business.  There will be “more” jobs in the state without Amazon. 

And I suspect that the peripheral activity or consequences of the brick and mortar stores, such as face-to-face engagement, and their continuing existence, which softens the Internet impact on local economies by not increasing the vacancies of buildings in the local areas, will further enhance the health of local economies in general.

As for the speed with which some of the people who “must” have next day delivery, don’t forget that your local bookstore can offer “same hour delivery” on most titles.  Whereas speed is sometimes important, the desire for it only shows, in my view, questionable value, just as the teenager likes the speed of the automobile.  The essence is missed by focus on insignificants.

Admitting that the Internet environment has allowed for greater efficiency is many respects, the shock of it has contributed in many ways to the destabilization of our economy.  Our legislators, being impressed by the well-funded lobbyists, and being generally in positions of comfort, and therefore being complacent and slow to head off disasters, have allowed advantages to the mega-Internet retailers, such as the sales tax advantage, thereby increasing the number of brick and mortar failures in the local economies.  Progress is good.  Unbridled and reckless progress, especially if it advantages only the very few in positions to gain from it, can destroy an economy.

What has happened regarding the Internet in our country is similar to what happened in the late nineteenth century wherein new industries and methods of production and distribution brought out the rush and almost insane aggressions by those in the right positions, as if they were up front at the start of a race, to grab for advantages to establish empires and brutal monopolies.  This was fine for a while, but as with these days, the wealth, because of price fixing and shark activities, began to accumulate into the pockets of only a few.

Another note to those who are enthralled by the Internet marketing and distributing environment; they might consider the vulnerability of a system which is structured so that it converges into one point, whether it be manufacturing or distribution and marketing.  If the Internet ever went down, which is not the most likely thing I’m sure, imagine the chaos that would result because of it.  The fact of having many tens of thousands of locations within which inventory, distribution, and ordering occurs makes the overall scenario one that promotes survivability in the case of any catastrophic event.  The gradual destruction of these tens of thousands of brick and mortar stores, which previously warehoused inventory, offered multiple sales and distribution locations, is placing a vulnerable facet in our economy.   

In general, greed is and has been at the forefront of all decisions and legislations in America, and in general, our legislators, especially the GOP kind, have held back on decisions to protect the average person from its consequences.  We are now seeing the consequences of decades of greed by too many of our legislatures who have lacked the backbone and integrity to refuse the millions in lobbying money from those reaping the rewards of legislation favoring the rich, which allows the sharks in our economy to rape the average person, and to ultimately weaken or destroy an economy.

We, the common people, will suffer more in the coming months and years.  We will suffer until we discover how to force our legislators to make decisions critical to controlling the greed which has allowed the one percent to not only accumulate obscene wealth and income, but to destroy the economy in the process of accumulating.

We do not have a democracy.  We, the common people, are calmed and placated with religion and lies and the promotion of ignorance about too many things.  We are controlled, tricked, manipulated, and finally and always, screwed.  We have slept through too many years, and we are going to suffer more because of it.

Did I get off subject?  I apologize.     

[civil42806]

I'm sorry I thought amazon was evil because it didnt charge state sales tax and was destoying  small book stores.  Its hard to keep up

[vicupstate]

Amazon uses the promise/threat of jobs to avoid all kinds of taxes, and not just sales taxes.  They opened a facility in Columbia/Lexington County SC earlier this year and will soon do so in Spartanburg SC.  The Columbia one became a huge political football over corporate welfare/crony capitalism.   They play one state against another to get what they want.  They eventually got their sales tax exemption for in-state sales, and reduced property taxes as well. 

These jobs are low paying, low skill and many are part-time.  I realize such jobs are needed, but they are hardly the kind to build a strong economy on.