Mohacsy's Safe Portfolio Member Forum

[Elroy Jetson]

Returning goods to Amazon, or other online retailers, is easy and usually free - certainly for Prime members.

If we lived within a reasonable distance to a Costco we'd have a Costco membership, but the travel time to the closest Costco near Glendale would be 42 minutes according to Google even though it is a mere 8.4 miles from here. These are 8.4 particularly difficult miles of side streets in Los Angeles. Amazon Prime costs the same as a Costco membership, but the difference is Amazon brings their store to me and returns are accepted two blocks from here.

Ralph Lauren imposes a modest return fee on each package which is fine because, like most retailers, they don't sell their tall sizes in their retail stores which make brick and mortar clothing stores all but useless to me.

Shopping online is similar to a store on Rodeo Drive which was patronized by many CEOs. Shopping was by appointment only and when the customer arrived everything in one section of the store was in their size from shoes and socks to suits and appropriate to their look. The "Wall Street Journal" had a front page article with the CEO of Bell and Howell leaving the store having purchased $185,000 worth of clothing.

Retail stores will remain one method of purchasing and returning goods, which is why Amazon is opening and purchasing more retail locations. But Amazon has completely revolutionized the economics of retailing virtually everything.