WEBVTT

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inflatable elephants swimming pools cell phones books adult things you can buy

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pretty much anything these days on Amazon but how did this internet

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Superstore get to be as huge as it is today in 1994 a guy named Jeff Bezos

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wanted to take advantage of the big e-commerce boom he left his job as the

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vice president of a Wall Street firm to sell CDs computer hardware and software

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videos and books out of his garage it's

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a familiar story quite a risk but within

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two months Amazon sales were up to

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$20,000 a week and while the largest

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bookstores and cataloges might be able to offer 200,000 titles an online

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bookstore could order in and carry several times more since it has an

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almost infinite virtual Warehouse wisdom

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that we take for granted these days but was pretty revolutionary at the time as

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Amazon grew however the virtual Warehouse was almost completely replaced

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with the Fulfillment center model we're talking massive like really massive

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brick and mortar facilities with some of their fulfillment centers being as large

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as 1.2 million square fet but wait a

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second why wouldn't they just keep using the almost infinite virtual warehouses

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you see while the Fulfillment center may have its drawbacks it suits Amazon's

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needs better now the two main reasons being that they have space to store

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large bulk orders meaning they can get products for cheaper and having items in

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the building means they can be shipped out faster with this Bas however systems

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needed to be put in place to reduce travel time throughout the warehouse

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here's an example imagine you're in the grocery store and you need to get items

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from each corner of the store wouldn't it be much faster if there was a couple

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of every item in the same aisle of course it would and this is how Amazon

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dealt with all that space by evenly dispersing

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popular items throughout the warehouse rather than having just one place for it

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making it easier to find something without traveling long distances

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employees are also equipped with special scanners to track items moving

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throughout the facility so between this system and a series of strategically

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placed conveyor belts items can be checked for damage and ready to ship

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within 1 to 2 hours but in the Modern Age shipping an

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item out quickly isn't enough to make you choose a retailer so what are some

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of the other interesting things that they've done to shape their customer

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Behavior one of them introduced about 10 years ago was Amazon Prime the yearly

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fee that allows buyers to get two-day shipping at no extra cost on qualifying

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items this had the risk for Amazon of reducing profit margins because if

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someone ordered a lot of items very frequently but with very small orders

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they could end up losing money on the subscription service but had the benefit

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of getting their customers in the habit of coming back and at least checking for

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an item before shopping somewhere else and they've done a couple other clever

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sneaky things as well so number one is anytime you are shopping on Amazon

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whether you look at a specific item or a category it captures that data along

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with data about things that other people looked at and that other people bought

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and starts bombarding you with targeted ads encouraging you to come back and

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look at those items again sometimes even going as far as offer a small discount

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on them and while this was I think more

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critical in the early days when many people didn't have confidence in online

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shopping in general their online review system is in my experience pretty much

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second to none and almost essential for their site these days because trying to

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narrow down to the right product by category is pretty difficult on

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amazon.com so being able to just go okay I want the ones with four and a half

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stars or more and shopping from that can

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be easier a serious concern though is that a seller through Amazon might add

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fake reviews to their products to boost their ratings and while Amazon tries to

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find and filter these fake reviews a lot of them get through the cracks with

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manufacturers paying people to write more convincing fake reviews the good

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news is that there's at least the verified purchase tag so you can check

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out those ones if you want to make sure that person actually bought the item

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another thing that they've done is an incredible job of affiliate marketing

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you've probably heard me on our other Linus Tech tips Channel talking about

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using our Amazon affiliate code but basically this is a super smart way of

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advertising that doesn't require Amazon to do any upfront payment basically they

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just have creators like us or influencers sign up for the affiliate

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program mention Amazon all the time and then they provide a small Kickback

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whenever that code is used at no extra

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cost to the consumer basically a finder fee I know this was a bit of an unusual

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ual video today but leave your comments below let us know what you thought

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because honestly it was inspired by me buying something on Amazon the other day

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you know an industrial siiz pack of marshmallow peeps or whatever and

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realizing after IID ordered it that I didn't even shop anywhere else and

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wondering what exactly black magic it is that they had done to make me do that

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speaking of making someone do something

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you guys should definitely check out the link in the video description to Fresh

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books it's designed for freelance workers or small businesses and it's

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basically an online tool that makes invoicing getting paid and tracking your

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expenses easier all the little details about cash flow are in one place so you

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know where you stand it shows a full history of each invoice and allows you

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to check if your client has viewed the invoice and PID directly through

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freshbooks by credit card and this is cool they actually just launched their

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deposits feature so if you're a house painter or a plumber or any kind of work

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where you might do you know a deposit and then half the work and then you know

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some more work and then they pay the rest at the end or whatever else those

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more complicated payment schemes are Now supported pretty cool stuff so all you

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got to do to try out fresh books for free is head over to freshbooks.com

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tequi and don't forget to enter Techquickie in the how did You Hear About Us

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section so thanks for watching guys if you like this video hit the like button

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and get subscribed if you didn't like it hit the dislike button if you have suggestions for future fastest posses go

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ahead and leave those in the comments and I think that pretty much wraps it up I will see you again next time