Must admit I have done my fair share of shopping from Amazon but late last year I done my best to avoid and this article just confirms what is killing real jobs/shops and not forgetting their tax avoidance 😥
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ed6a985c-70bd-11e2-85d0-00144feab49a.html#slide0

The problem with ethical purchasing decisions is being informed – are you just going to boycott the businesses that the media spoon feeds us the dirt on, the Vodafones, the Amazons, the Googles, or will you do your own due diligence on every supplier you choose to use?

Do you know whether the local shopkeeper is paying his taxes correctly, or does he pay staff cash-in-hand (avoiding national insurance)? Do you know if the friendly plumber you talk to down the pub does work for cash, avoiding VAT? Do you know what your pension funds are invested in? Do any of those firms have involvement in the arms trade? Or Israel (if, for example, those are issues that concern you)?

It does seem to be a bit “villain of the month” with which big businesses are being lambasted at any one time.

On the other hand:

Internet shopping has greatly improved choice and price competition and enabled small shops to gain a world wide audience.

Even we benefit from flogging our used/unwanted bike stuff on the internet.

So its not all bad news.

Not really, sounds like they’re pretty successfully implementing Lean manufacturing techinques and properly managing productivity whilst eliminating the potential for human cockups. It’s why they’re cheap, you as the consumer don’t have to pay for all the non value added work dealing with the problems normal business just pass on to the customer in the sales price. It’s what most manufacturing and supply chain businesses aspire to (although few get beyond the talking). Sounds like some employees are experiencing a bit of a culture shock at being expected to work through out the shift rather than the way it is in a traditional business where real productivity levels are nearer 50%.

As fot the tax avoidance, they’re a business, it’s the politicans who’ve totally dropped the ball on that.

Nothing in the article suggested they were doing anything illegal (only got half way through to be honest) or imoral as far as I could see.

As for killing real jobs, utter dribble, Amazon jobs are real jobs, by real jobs do you mean jobs where people get high wages for low productivity.

Get used to it, Lean is the only way the West will compete with the low wage economies of the East. Plus consumers don’t want to pay for a company to be wasteful and inefficient. The central tenet on Lean manufacturing is to only do what the customer wants, assembling something is what the customer is paying for, moving it from A to B around the warehouse several times or spending half an hour looking for it because someone’s put it on the wrong shelf is not what people want to pay for.

Ironically from personal experience this sort of approach is usually most stubbornly resisted by middle managers rather than the people at the sharp end (remember it is usually the shop floor staff who add the value, all the management layers are non value added cost). It’s those managers who have the most to lose, suddenly their effectiveness at making their staff productive can be questionned. A managers role is to make their employees job easier and faster (through process improvement, not a big stick), if they’re not doing that they’re not justifiying their existance.

so you think their tax avoidance strategy is a good thing then?

The world works in funny ways when financial gain is involved.

not as funnily as the singletrackworld though.

What worries me is that its seems that this is the only type of job creation politicians crow about nowadays – minimum wage jobs on short contracts. I can’t imagine anyone on MW creating much demand on the wider economy, I’d struggle to live beyond substance levels, I’d imagine.

Not defending Amazon, but their website also helps smaller businesses by enabling them to trade on there. No idea how badly they sting them for fees etc though.

dirk_pumpa – Member
so you think their tax avoidance strategy is a good thing then?

I would guess that if any options were presented to you that would result in you legally paying less tax, you’d turn them down flat?
If so, I would suggest that you’d be in a fairly small minority; I don’t know of a single person who’d turn away the opportunity to pay less tax legally. I certainly wouldn’t.
Flame me for being unethical, I really couldn’t give a toss. I’ve grown sick and tired of seeing my taxes squandered by government on utterly useless IT systems for the Police, the NHS, and others, that cost tens of billions of pounds, failed to come online, and were scrapped, and on a hopelessly ill-advised plan to set up regional control centres, for the emergency services, that also failed to come into use, and sat empty and idle at a cost to me, the tax-payer, of tens of thousands of pounds a year, before being sold off.

^^^^ with you, if i could pay less tax legally i would

If someone said to me that I could pay less tax but others on much lower incomes would pay more I would turn them down flat.

We’re not all Tories, regardless of what CallMeDave says…

i also disagree alot with the opinion that online shopping has pushed high streets out of business due to pricing, i think it runs alot deeper than just pricing (althou i expect that does pay a large part)

i personally feel alot of the time i buy online for convinience not for cost sometimes even if its the same price online ill be it online so i dont have to track into town, finding somewhere to park, battle thought town etc etc.

its just soooo much more convinient

If someone said to me that I could pay less tax but others on much lower incomes would pay more I would turn them down flat

but its ok for someone on a lower income to want people on a higher income to pay more ?

Some yanks give their views
http://www.indeed.com/forum/cmp/Amazon.com/s-company-culture-at-Amazon-com/t11124

However, it’s on a forum so not real life.

If someone said to me that I could pay less tax but others on much lower incomes would pay more I would turn them down flat

but its ok for someone on a lower income to want people on a higher income to pay more ?

Oh do shut up, higher tax rates are about ability to pay and social responsibility. The rich do quite well out of poor people. They buy stuff, and do other stuff for cheap.

CountZero – Member

I don’t know of a single person who’d turn away the opportunity to pay less tax legally. I certainly wouldn’t.

You should check out some of the political threads, there are plenty of prolific posters that are totally against it.

😆

Oh do shut up.

please done tell me to shut up when im voicing an opinion i have the same rights are you to voice them.

Don’t companies have a legal obligation to maximise profit for shareholders? That means if they can pay less tax, they have to. Change the law. Don’t invest.

Amazon is killing jobs?

Right enough, the new building at Dunfermline went up by magic and is staffed by trained hamsters 🙄

I was in HMV today, they nearly went down the tubes blaming a lot of their woes on the likes of Amazon. HMV are a record shop, so can someone explain to me the 5 pinball machines along the back wall?

Maybe the government should tax Amazon, Google, Vodafone etc properly and give tax breaks to independent retailers to get the high street buzzing again and the two can live in harmony and stop filling the high street with pound shops and gold buyers

Maybe the government should tax Amazon, Google, Vodafone etc properly

Astonishing that no Govt seems to have thought of that. Wouldn’t be anything to do with Party funding would it?

please done tell me to shut up when im voicing an opinion i have the same rights are you to voice them.

Looked like you asked a question. It was the question mark at the end of the sentence you typed that caused confusion.

In which case….

Oh don’t be daft, higher tax rates are about ability to pay and social responsibility. The rich do quite well out of poor people. They buy stuff, and do other stuff for cheap.

If I stopped shopping at Amazon my postie would be out of a job.

Astonishing that no Govt seems to have thought of that. Wouldn’t be anything to do with Party funding would it?

More than likely. Someone last week (I think it was Stefan Denis would you believe?) said that they could understand why any government spends so much time arguing between themselves and seems to thrive on confrontation when they should all work together for a better country for their people – This is the kind of thing that we have to put up with because of these asshole elected officials that were brought up to believe more in money for themselves and their kind rather than doing the work to better their country…….you know, what they’re meant to do

I’d rather work in an Amazon warehouse than down a mine.

It’s not just about the tax, though it may have been the tax that first attracted the FT’s attention.

It’s about terms and conditions of employees, minimum wage slaves I’d call them. In warehouses that the company calls ‘fulfillment centres’. That to me is justification for assault with a pair of bombers by itself. I’ll avoid them from now on.

Don’t companies have a legal obligation to maximise profit for shareholders?

Nope, maximising shareholder value. No, it’s not the same thing.

Appropriately there is a programme on radio 4 about corporate tax evasion right now. Should be worth a listen

I was just thinking that carloz! Yes, there are some odd “management” practices at Amazon by all accounts, but compared to being down a pit or working on any assembly line? Perhaps there is a nostalgia for past, grim jobs where the unpleasantness gets lost in the time. A bit like school, you tend to remember the good stuff and black out the rest.

I try/tried to buy from local bookshops first before amazon, but service was typically lousy. Sorry sir, we don’t have it in stock but can get it in a week. Hmmm, with amazon it will be there in 24 hours and with kindle, minutes. I recently bought a load of books in Waterstones. Asked the assistant (sic) if they had a book. She ended up looking it up on Amazon!!!

Something clearly needs to be done about tax harmonisation to deal wit the way companies like amazon avoided tax. But never forget, companies don’t pay tax. It’s money that comes from customers/employees and/or shareholders. And evidence suggests that lots of people are happy to swap amazons low rate of tax for low price books as uncomfortable as that might seem.

I’d happily pay more tax if it was used to reduce inequality. Sadly, post Thatcher, tax cuts are just used to subsidise the top 1%.

Amazon aren’t doing anything that lots of other businesses operating in the UK do too, to a greater or lesser extent. They pay everything they are legally obliged to. The extra revenue that they are directing out of the country is paying a level of tax in some part of the world, either because it’s a lower corporation tax charge, or perhaps they genuinely do need the funds to run other parts of the company elsewhere in the world. It’s possible (though probably it’s the lower tax level in in this case). Whether it’s moral or not is subjective – it’s global business and it’s just the way it is. If corporation tax were less in the UK, they’d be less likely to funnel profit away as ‘management fees’, etc.

But flip it on it’s head and think of all the National Insurance contributions, business rates, etc, they ARE paying in the UK – it’s not unfeasible that if the UK gov got really pushy about tax, that they scale back warehousing operations in the UK and ship out of France or similar. Then there wouldn’t even be the local revenue going into the government coffers.

Starbucks might find it hard to do that though!

I have Amazon Prime, a bit less than a quid a week.
Everything (assuming its eligible, which is most stuff from Amazon, and a fair bit from other sellers) arrives next day. 4 misses in three years, each of which got me a free extra month of Prime.

I buy all sorts of shit from Amazon- pencils, inks, shoes, bulbs, toys, books, tools.

76 orders in the last 6 months, excluding kindle books. It doesn’t get better than this for me, service wise.

Oh, and the job thing- these are the practices of any big despatch warehouse.
I spent a couple of months about twenty years ago working in an (HMV, I think) warehouse in the leadup to Christmas. Bussed in, bussed out 12 hour shifts in a gigantic tin shed with no heating, terrible pay and working conditions. No Brits working there I noticed.
Rather be at Amazon I think.

If it keeps the prices low I’ll keep buying, I don’t care if the company pays tax or not to be honest

footflaps – Member

I’d happily pay more tax if it was used to reduce inequality

Reduce inequality by simply giving me a bike!
I know where you live, just tell me when to pop over. 😀

I was just thinking that carloz! Yes, there are some odd “management” practices at Amazon by all accounts, but compared to being down a pit or working on any assembly line?

There are plenty of assembly line jobs in manufacturing (automotive, aerospace to think if a couple out if many) that are far more appealing than working in an Amazon warehouse. They’re not all as grim as you might like to think from whatever textbook you’ve peered over the top of this evening.

So DD, you haven’t been inspired by Bayern tonight? Still playing the Norman Hunter role. Impressive persistence, if rather sad.

What the bejeesus are you on about thm? I do wonder sometimes… Are you alright?

😉

Forget all of the above, the real reason to avoid Amazon is because you can’t swap price tags 😉

Well I think its a pretty sad face of Britain today,large Multi national company employing people on minimum wage with no job security treating them like crap and bullying suppliers and changing the countrys high st for the worse.
The Government old and new crow on about new jobs and investment but Amazon take out a lot more than they put into this countrys economy,yeah wow you get things cheaper and on your doormat 24/48 hrs later but people need to wake up on smell the coffee(preferbly not starbucks!).I like my High St and lucky for me its full of independant shops old and new but for how long is any ones guess 🙁