Jeff Bezos explains Amazon's customer obsession: 30-day returns on toys and electronics, 3,000+ employees, and 4 million square feet of distribution centers to get products close to customers. He argues this focus on selection, low prices, and service aligns with shareholder interests.
Questions this video answers
A 30 day return policy.
Over 3,000 employees.
Over 4 million square feet of distribution center space.
About half a dozen distribution centers around the country.
December 13, 2023 (created and uploaded by Lorenzo).
Chapters
But I believe that if you can focus obsessively enough on customer experience, selection, ease of use, low prices, more information to make purchase decisions with, if you can give customers all that, plus great customer service, and with our toys and electronics, we have a 30 day return policy. If you can do all of that, then I think you have a good chance. And that's what we're trying to do.
You're not really a pure Internet company anymore either, are you? I mean, you've got millions of square feet now of real estate. You've got a growing, huge and growing inventory of items. You've got thousands and thousands of employees now.
Yeah, we have over 3,000 employees and over 4 million square feet of distribution center space. And those are things I'm very, very proud of because with that distribution center space and half a dozen distribution centers around the country, it allows us to get product close to customers so that we can ship it to customers in a very timely way, which improves customer service levels. That's what we're about. If there's one thing Amazon.com is about, it's. It's obsessive attention to the customer experience, end to end. And that's what those distribution centers are.
But you're not a pure Internet play.
It doesn't matter to me whether we're a pure Internet play. What matters to me is do we provide the best customer service Internet Schminternet. That doesn't matter.
Well, but it does matter to your investors to know whether they're investing in a company that.
No, they should be investing in a company that obsesses over customer experience. In the long term, there is never any misalignment between customer interest and shareholder interests.
Well, that's the same argument that somebody at Walmart would make as well, wouldn't they?
I don't see why not. I think they should make that argument. It's a correct argument.
Okay, so you'll open as many square feet of space, physical space as you have to hire as many employees as you have to to service customers.
Absolutely. And we'll do it as rapidly as we can.
That's a very cost intense proposition.
Not compared to opening an equivalent network of retail stores. So if you open a bunch of chain stores, look, when we open a distribution center, we're opening places that may have, you know, where we may pay $0.30 a square foot for a lease instead of paying $7 a square foot, which you might pay in a high traffic retail area. So when you compare those things, they're not the same. You can't compare a big chain of retail stores to half a dozen distribution centers. It's just not, you know, it's bad math. Okay.
Either way, whichever side of the argument you believe you're making what seems to.
Me to there's only one side which is obsess over customers.
