2017-11-17 21:58 Santa Claus is coming and Amazon is coming to town too
Y (Kuma's owner)
The same as other shopping centres in the world, here in Australia, there are lots of giant shopping areas. It's fun to visit there but I noticed almost every shopping centre has the same shops; McDonalds, Hungry Jack's, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Sumo Salad, Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi and so on. Some of them, like McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken are world-wide companies and we can see them everywhere in the world. It makes us feel comfortable that we can taste food that we got used to. On the other hand, there is no special feature because every shopping center has the same retail shops. I heard that the retail rent price is increasing year by year and it's difficult to afford money for small retail shops. Franchise shops can afford the rent and even if one of them cannot make enough money, other shops will cover for it. Therefore, all shopping centres look the same. There is no variety.
However, there is an exception in Australia, it's Starbucks.
When I came to Australia, there were Starbucks in every big city and now they have gone. I heard that there is a cafe culture in Australia. Every city and town has a local cafe and people love them. That led Starbucks to withdraw from Australia. According to The New York Times article, the American giant bookshop "Borders" was rejected from the locals and withdrew, and people are paying attention what will happen to the next, Amazon.
Australians seems to purely like local businesses. In addition, approximately 60% of books selling at bookshops are domestic writers. Is Amazon going to sell Australian writer's books a lot like other local bookshops do?
Honestly, I like Amazon and I have been using Amazon often because their service is very good. I bought lots of books, miscellaneous goods, I also use Kindle. One of the reasons I use Amazon a lot is the arrangement is quick and I can get what I want very soon. Wait, there is one very important thing that Amazon cannot do, it's a delivery.
Australia is a huge country, as huge as the U.S.A. and less people. As I wrote before, the distribution system network has its problems. I cannot tell if Amazon will do well or not.
I will see what happens.