Jeff Bezos Does It Again -- November 9, 2016

Link here.

This is not traditional house-keeping. They're not going to be vacuuming or washing or scrubbing or doing anything that really is associated with traditional house-cleaning. This is "house-keeping" or "tidying up," as they say.

But I may be wrong: the job description does include "help provide high-quality cleanings and meet any special requests." The key phrase is "help provide." The job description does not say comprehensive house-cleaning.

The Amazon employees will stop by your house on a daily basis and will help you "tidy up" -- LOL! Bring in your groceries and paper products. They will note what you need -- more toilet paper, more tuna, perhaps a new microwave oven, and they will ask the homeowner if they should go ahead and order anything.

Over time, the relationship between the Amazon employee and the customer will develop to the point that the Amazon employee won't even have to ask. He/she will simply order what's needed. Even a new microwave oven every so often.

This is incredibly clever.

Now, how would Jeff Bezos think of doing this?

Some years ago Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post.

One day Jeff asked his distribution manager, "Hey, Bob, how do we get The Washington Post  to our subscribers? Not the electronic edition but the print edition. How do customers get the paper?"

"Well, Jeff, someone delivers it to their door."

"You mean, one of our employees has a daily route taking him/her to thirty or forty of our customers? Every day?

"Yes, day in and day out, one of our employees -- well, actually a subcontractor -- we generally don't do it ourselves. But yes, in a sense our employees visit our customers every day -- and they do it first thing every morning -- to make sure they get the daily newspaper."

Jeff: "Do you think that person could deliver, let's say toilet paper, at the same time?"

Bob: "I don't see why not."

Jeff: "Bob, could you call Heather in her? I have an idea for a new Amazon Prime service."