Want to See What’s Up Amazon’s Sleeve? Take a Tour of Seattle

Since Amazon has a retail facility in a prostitutional area, it should now take the next big leap and Amazonize prostitution. If prostitution were "Amazonized" the entire profession have the bar raised. The industry would be safer and healthier. There would be a massive reduction in crimes related to prostitution. Prostitution is one area in which Amazon, instead of working against America and the world could actually economically render product and service that is needed and wanted around the world. It is far past time that Bezos do something on behalf of humanity rather than trying to destroy humanity.

“Amazon Go,” “Amazon Fresh,” “Amazon Books”…like a juggernaut, Amazon is definitely moving towards having it all “up its sleeve”…what, no catchy “Amazon” term or "logitics model" to encompass the tens-of-thousands of displaced and homeless people living in the streets and under the bridges of Seattle?

Amazon is terrific and I enjoy shopping on its website but after reading that it will probably not choose NY as its second headquarters because it would just be another name in the bucket of big name companies located here. I hope that is true because our streets and means of transportation are already overcrowded and we are fortunate to have many highly educated, talented people living here.

I've been in Seattle 40 years. Yes, traffic is a nightmare, but that's because people insist on driving places alone instead of using the many transit options. The growth of Starbucks, Nordstrom, Expedia, Microsoft, and Amazon and others, as with most things, has not been uniformly good but on balance has greatly benefited the city. It's a great place to live and work even if it is not perfect. I'm a Prime member and love Amazon, along with apparently many millions of people.

Seattle has infrastructure problems. They need to change their building codes too. Amazon, Boeing, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. all bring a lot of economic vitality. Displacement (gentrification) is always an issue. Ask the coal minors, home weavers etc. We need to better address that aspect of change.

Seattle has an overabundance of six-figure salaried types who are too busy to deal with mundane stuff like taking the time to walk thru a grocery store, and are enthralled by the latest gee-whiz gadgetry and convenience. Why Amazon would test their latest innovations here as a representative sample of what will fly in the rest of the country is beyond me. The Seattle metro area was doing just fine before Amazon arrived and morphed into the vampire squid of retail. Livability and our regional culture has taken a dive ever since. But anyone who hasn't lived here at least 20 years wouldn't have a clue. If they pulled out like the Sonics, it would be fine with me.

I used to enjoy grocery shopping, walking around the produce area and thinking about what to get, noticing what is in season and being among others doing the same. I liked to see small children asking to try new things and their caregivers responding. It reminded me of when my children were small and we would go to the store. There was always a nice interaction either with employees or other patrons. I have noticed in recent years that these kind of interactions seem to have disappeared from stores, and when I try to initiate one I often get either blank stares or a quick brush off. Employees act like customers don't exist even when they are standing next to them. People are looking into some undefined distance. It's very odd. I think it's very sad that we are losing our ability to have small, friendly interactions with strangers on a daily basis. It's like we don't want to even see another person we don't already know. What is Amazon's purpose except for Mr. Bezos getting richer than god himself which has already been accomplished? I think it is a shame that Seattle has handed itself over to Amazon so easily. I don't think it bodes well. Future generations may look back and regret that we so easily gave into the retailer's con game called "convenience" so that a very few could get filthy rich.

Thankful for amazon only because their deliveries to my door let me avoid the stopped traffic everywhere in Seattle ...to the east, west, north and south... that Amazon itself created. Wait a second...

Seattle has also been a laboratory for Amazon's civic bullying. The latest experiment tested whether Amazon could force the the city council to repeal a tax it didn't like, and it was, from the company's perspective, a wild success. Tourists interested in Amazonian Seattle should note the many "treasure trucks" on the city's sidewalks--shopping carts filled with the belongings of people Amazon helped to displace and now refuses to help.

I live in Seattle, and I've never been to any of these Amazon storefronts. In fact, I wasn't even aware they all existed. So, don't think we're all living an Amazonian existence. It's possible to live without Amazon, even in Seattle.

As a Seattle resident I take great pleasure in avoiding all things Amazon including the non union Whole Foods. We have wonderful local bookstores, small businesses and the awesome Metro Market (union) grocery stores where I do my shopping.

Amazon wants to do what Walmart did to small towns across America in the 1980s. The only difference is instead small businesses closing in rural towns they be closing in cites.

I live in Seattle and I understand the convenience and ease in all of this. But after Facebook/Cambridge Analytica, I'm much more careful about what info I put out online. I'm just not ready to sacrifice more of my privacy. Cameras read your license plate? That's creepy. You would give up your privacy so you don't have to get out of your car? I can get a discount of certain items at Whole Foods if when I check out, I use my Amazon account. No Thanks. Amazon doesn't need to know what brand of toilet paper I use.

Ok - when will Amazon bring one of their Amazon Go stores to Memphis?? Hey Amazon, bring an Amazon Go to Memphis, TN - home of the blues and bbq!!!!!

I left Seattle in 2003 for the east coast. When I return, the city I knew from my childhood, teens and 20s is gone. I suppose that is just the way of cities. They change, transform and mutate to the benefit of some, and likely to the detriment of more than a few. This article does confirm was I suspected, that the stamp of huge corporations has become Seattle's hallmark, however it gives me hope to hear current residents eschew their roles as guinea pigs.

If you watch the local news here in Seattle you will see that pretty much any store is now "grab and go". It has nothing to do with Amazon but our lack of police protection in the city. Google the words "Seattle Target Rampage 15 minutes" and watch. I talked to a buddy yesterday who is the first person I ever met to use Amazon way back when they only did books (oh, the good old days). He went on and on about the hassle he was having returning an item. Amazon might want to try some better marketing. I live in Seattle and learn about these stores from the New York Times and other east coast media even though I live on the same road as that return center. I have not seen the Shop and Go, the Treasure Truck, or a drive through pick-up store. I have lived in Seattle since '87 and have never walked into a Whole Foods. I just had to look them up to even see where they are located in this city:) If any other city in America wants Amazon please let me know. I have lots of bubble-wrap and will be happy to pack them up. But don't try and return the product once you get it:)

What is this mad dash to eliminate people from the service industries? Is it so they will all be in the back room and thus can be as poor and disheveled as the company can get away with? One day companies, and the various transport operations, will wake up and find that people are a vital part of the process, because if they have any brains at all they can usually be counted on to spot things that are about to go disastrously wrong before they do so. Software fails. A finite percentage of customers are cleverly dishonest (or worse - read David Sedaris on defecation in department stores). A rail car, bus or subway carriage, without at least the threat of authority appearing, is an urban theater or a crime scene waiting to happen. It does no good to say "we got it on video". The perps learn to avoid video or use stooges or distractions. The victims are victimized and the video is no comfort. And as costs are cut, the videos get lost, get erased, get stolen, or are skimmed over by underpaid idiots. This is not going to go the way you expect.

In the seattle neighborhood I’ve lived in and around for over 50 years I’ve experienced the hollowing out following the Boeing bust of the early 70s (about 50 k layoffs) and the subsequent closure of elementary schools and the nearest high school due to declining population and aging demographics. Thousands of families picked up and left, housing prices collapsed, homelessness surged, then it was out of work Vietnam vets that clustered on corners downtown and at the mall with “will work for food” signs. Now the city is growing and with all the young people moving into town, doing what they usually do, the population of school age children is growing and several new or restored schools are being planned or are already under construction. It’s not just Amazon, but other tech companies, construction, University, government, Starbucks, and many others that have been on a growth spurt. Despite the hardship of many who have been displaced by rising rents and gentrification, if the Amazon hits a big pothole and the local economy tanks again like it did back in the 70s and someone puts up the “will the last one leaving please turn out the lights” billboard again, the city will look back wistfully on the growth spurt of the 20-teen years and hope for the emergence of whatever new company that will become the engine of growth and renewal.

I find it ironic that Amazon now does deliveries to cars. Because this is where some people are now living, in their cars. Especially if they're working at an Amazon warehouse. Who can afford to rent or buy a place to live on sub-par wages?

I believe Walmart was the first American company to key inventory control to sales check-out data. That allowed the stores to keep on the shelves products that customers were buying. AMZN has taken this concept much further by anticipating customer wants often before customers know what they want. As we all know, this revolutionized the way business is conducted in America. And by capitalizing on the advantage of scale and technology, the company has dramatically lowered the cost of goods purchased and increased the convenience of moving the merchandise where buyers want it. The Luddites were not the first to resist technology and as some reactions to Amazon's advances suggest, their spirit survives. The issue is not how to thwart or ignore the company's innovation: it is how to make it ever-more socially constructive--like making the marketplace accessible to the home-bound and using data to guide the development of safer and more productive items and the knowledge needed to purchase them wisely. So glad to be living in the lab in which this is all evolving.

I realize the Zon has pros and cons, but for someone like me, who is physically handicapped, it has been a huge boon. I’ve been using Zon since all it sold were physical books. When hubs exhausted our three local “super” groceries recently in order to make a vegan dish for me, the “unavailable” last four ingredients were purchased from... (you know). Many of the medical supplies that will be needed after my fifteenth surgery this week came from there as well. Not everyone can drive to and stroll through brick and mortar! (there SHOULD be “loyalty points” or something similar, though)

Doing your shopping on a screen, avoiding human interaction, avoiding any effort for your own sustenance... in the end, there is absolutely nothing interesting about the Amazon phenomenon. It is a cultural dead zone, only seeking to part fools from their money for the sake of convenience. It's effect on Seattle as a whole has been the generification of a once-engaging urban culture that is no more, unless you consider cookie cutter, well-coiffed beards and $100 flannel shirts to be expressions of individuality.

How interesting! Whole Foods has been a success in Annapolis, MD and being innovative is no crime. Sadly, my age is such that I won't seen the end results but I am enjoying what is now available.

Maybe when the economic value of returns to brick-and-mortar stores takes off, the economic and social values of brick-and-mortar stores will skyrocket, with plenty of competitors to Amazon and fewer delivery trucks idling in our streets.

Interesting article. I don’t see the incentive for picking up items when you can have them delivered by Amazon for free (although I get it that for a minority of people deliveries themselves can be problematic). Returns make sense because they are indeed a hassle. Amazon needs to incentivize pickups. I’ve never really understood why they don’t have a loyalty scheme (i.e a points type program). It boggles the mind - frankly.