wiremonger

5 ms·

1.
by wiremonger 3y ago
IMO the significant differences in how Pro and Max are stratified in M1/M2 vs M3 will probably make a lot more sense when M3 Ultra comes out.
2.
by wiremonger 4y ago
Can confirm. Amazon's warehouses have been absolutely packed lately, sellers have have been complaining about inbound shipping limits for most of Q4. This is despite Amazon growing warehouse capacity by a huge amount in 2021 and having
3.
by wiremonger 4y ago
We were deciding on a business name at the time, so we didn’t already own the trademark. Based on other similar names that we were considering, voltive.com should probably have been under $10k, but the seller absolutely refused to budge (wh
4.
by wiremonger 4y ago
Here’s another perspective. We own voltive.com. It cost us $28k. “Us” is me and my partner, small business owners with families and bills, working to build something of value in the world. We bought the domain from someone who had never use
5.
by wiremonger 4y ago
For our purposes (and most businesses), those are marginal improvements. And there's absolutely no way the very significant risks involved with handling cryptocurrency are worth it to us.
6.
by wiremonger 4y ago
We regularly wire our overseas suppliers > $100k. Costs $40 per transaction. Zero paperwork. Takes several hours for them to receive.
7.
by wiremonger 4y ago
I agree, seems to me like a lot of their popularity was tied to pandemic lockdowns coupled with people's balance sheets going up because of stock, real estate, etc. Basically, a microcosm of the huge increase in home improvement and du
8.
by wiremonger 4y ago
Our products are popular with the vanlife crowd. We’ve sold to dozens of conversion companies at this point (we sell wire that can be used to hook up all the low voltage devices that get installed in them). So I’ve tried to figure out who i
9.
by wiremonger 4y ago
Flexport is a freight forwarder. You tell them where you want your international shipment to go and they make all the arrangements with the various intermediaries to get it from origin to destination and through customs. I’ve worked with a
10.
by wiremonger 4y ago
By your theory, any business with suppliers or retail customers is one hire away from extinction. But we don’t actually see all that much of this kind of competition out in the real world. There is a reason that firms specialize: the size a
11.
by wiremonger 4y ago
How would another marketplace lowering their referral fee cause sellers to raise their prices? They can either keep the extra margin at the marketplace with the lower fees, or they can reduce their prices at Amazon.
12.
by wiremonger 4y ago
Counterfactual is a good term for the scenario you described since it is counter to the actual facts in this situation, which are that Amazon's referral fees are in line with all the other marketplaces and it's the 3rd party selle
13.
by wiremonger 4y ago
> Fees are even less if they sell direct on Ebay or Shopify. eBay charges similar fees: https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/fees-credits-invoices/sell... Shopify is not a meaningful comparison, since it is n
14.
by wiremonger 4y ago
This is nuts. Amazon is simply choosing not to show the product. It's the seller who decides what to do about that. They can raise the price at the other retailer or they can lower the price at Amazon . Fees are similar across all of
15.
by wiremonger 4y ago
> 10-15% could be 50-60% profit for most sellers. Yup. Amazon provides an extremely valuable service to us: they provide a stream of customers who are at the end of the sales funnel and ready to convert because they trust Amazon's p
16.
by wiremonger 4y ago
They (as in, Amazon) are not setting prices. The 3rd party sellers decide what the prices are: they can either lower the price on Amazon or raise the price at the other retailer. Amazon doesn't really care; they just want to sell stuff
17.
by wiremonger 4y ago
> Selling on Amazon takes a 18-33% markup on the price of the product. Amazon forces this margin consumers by requiring sellers to not sell cheaper elsewhere Amazon charges a referral fee on all 3rd party transactions. It varies by categ
18.
by wiremonger 4y ago
But Amazon isn't doing this so that they can make the other retailer's customers pay more. They're doing it to make sure their own customers pay the lowest price that prevails in the marketplace. It's just that this is t
19.
by wiremonger 4y ago
> with insane fees on sellers We sell on Amazon. The fees are not insane. It varies by category, but typically they range from 10-15%. Amazon brings tons of value to the relationship, so we're happy to pay that fee.
20.
by wiremonger 4y ago
Agree with your larger point, but prices actually were flat or slightly down in July vs June, which is deflation (they were up year over year, but that’s due to inflation in preceding months).
21.
by wiremonger 4y ago
> This seems like a non-story. It’s still very much a story. A big question has been whether recent inflation would be transitory. Ocean shipping rates coming back down means that at least this one facet of inflation will end up being tr
22.
by wiremonger 4y ago
Small tidbit: for cables that are permanently installed in buildings, the insulation and jacket material is more important than the thickness. Typically these installations are inspected by the local jurisdiction and the electrical code i
23.
by wiremonger 4y ago
> I suspect that our largest improvement would come from investment in transportation infrastructure for goods -- all of that is super choked right now and it affects everything. Just an FYI, any remaining supply chain issues are not rea