Tag Archives: economy

Hurrying Online Shipping

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We’re all getting used to buying more and more stuff on the internet. In the first place, it’s easier. You don’t have to leave your house, and it’s more comfortable when there’s nobody watching. In the second place, it’s cheaper. The only disadvantage is the speed. This problem can be solved by offering expedited shipping, making it faster but more expensive as well.

 

Customers pay more money for shipping, but does the expedited shipping itself actually cost more?  I’ll use Amazon as an example, only because everyone knows it, not because I personally don’t like it or so. Standard shipping within the US is 4-14 days, expedited 2-6 days. It’s funny that there’s an overlap of 2 days, which could mean you pay more for the same shipping time. But that probably won’t ever happen. What I meant to say is, how can the discrepancy between 6 days and 14 days be achieved?

 

Do the delivery cars drive faster, do the planes fly faster, do they hire marathon runners who’ll almost die on your lawn, just so you get what you want a few days earlier, not because you need it, but because you really really want it? No. So what does go faster?

 

“It is not enough to succeed. This means others must fail.”

 

I didn’t use this quote just because I like it, but it does fit in here in a way. Your package will travel faster if it jumps the queue. If all the patient people’s packages usually lie around for day or so in a warehouse and yours is through in an hour, it will make a difference. This means that the more people choosing expedited shipping, the longer the shipping time of the patient people. This is unfair. Shouldn’t it be ‘delayed shipping’ instead of ‘standard shipping’?

 

Now you probably think, well okay, so what? But it really is more than that. Isn’t it, as the Romans said it, not just malum in se ethically wrong, but also malum prohibitum, wrong because it is forbidden? If you get on the bus, you shouldn’t get a dirty seat just because others bought a ticket which gave them the clean seats. You should always get the same sort of seat, and if people pay more they get cleaner ones, but those clean seats should already be reserved for them, so that the cleanliness of your seat doesn’t depend on other people. If you go for standard shipping which is 4-14 days, the shipping time should depend on things like, bad weather, traffic problems, a lot of orders, or on the availability of your product. But not on the amount of people going for expedited shipping.

 

To really make it clear, you pay for a certain shipping time. That time can vary, but because of unpredictable causes. It should always be 4 days, unless something happens. You always pay the same, so shipping times should always be more or less the same. Amazon knows that when a lot of people chose expedited shipping, standard shipping time increases. Therefore, you should pay less because Amazon delayed your shipment intentionally by allowing people to get faster shipping. They say 4-14 and not just 6 to cover this. They’ll always make it in 14 days, no matter what. But to say that your package might arrive in 4 days is wrong, because they know it won’t. They act as if shipping times depend on unpredictable causes, but they actually influence it themselves.

 

So if you’ll go for expedited shipping in the future, be aware of how many others you’ll keep waiting.

 

A Good Decrease in Financial Crisis

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In times of recession people start looking for cheaper products of (almost) the same quality. Those who would have bought an iPhone 5 will start looking for a more budget-friendly alternative, stimulating the economy.

 

Either people will buy a lesser product, the iPhone 4S instead of the 5, or they will buy a different one. Nexus 4 is as functional as an iPhone, but you don’t get the half-eaten apple. This is good for the competition – iPhone will have to improve the quality or lower the price in order to compete with other brands. As a result, prices will fall without there being a decrease in quality.

 

Prices of phones might not keep falling though. Salaries decrease in a crisis and low salary people won’t buy much. Because the demand will keep decreasing, there is less production and therefore less salaries as well. But this ends somewhere, because somewhere down the spiral someone will say, hell I’ll buy an iPhone anyway. Then the production will rise, the salaries as well and the demand too. It is about the same for smartphones, prices will keep falling in order to increase the market-share, but as prices lower demand rises and if the demand becomes endless prices will rise again. Because why would Apple lower the prices if people will give 700 dollars for an iPhone?

 

But not everyone searches for new products. Websites such as eBay are doing better than ever. They sell second-hand products for a lower price, arousing the interest of people who have just that little less to spend. Some used products are as good as new, the price is only lower because people prefer something new. Of course quality decreases when it is used, but electrical products will be repaired for free within 1 or 2 years. So technically, buying products second-hand doesn’t affect the quality; electrical products are covered and non-electrical products are either in a good condition or they are broken.

 

The problem with buying everything ‘used’ on eBay is that there must be as many sellers as buyers. You can’t buy a used iPhone if nobody bought it in the store. This means that at least half of all people owning an iPhone must have bought it new. The prices of iPhones only lower for 50% of us.

 

In the end, though, prices will lower for all of us. Those who buy a Nexus 4 will spend less, those who buy a second-hand phone will spend less. When Apple finds out that a lot of customers are buying their iPhones on eBay, they will lower the prices of new iPhones to lure customers back to their stores. The crisis is good for something. As long as the prices decrease more than your wages, of course.