Randomly Noted

Amazon’s 14% second-quarter revenue growth – coming a day after the firm agreed to acquire online shoe seller Zappos.com, its biggest deal to date – underscores just how salient an all-purpose retailer the online book-purveyor has become. The sharpest revenue gains came in electronics and other general merchandise, which rose 35% overall. I suspect our family’s experience is an increasingly common one: I can’t remember the last time we ordered a book via Amazon.com. In Singapore and now in the U.S., we use the public and kids’ school libraries. Why buy books, especially pricey hard-backed ones, when you can borrow them for “free?” However, we have equipped our new home with general items purchased via Amazon. In recent weeks, these have included a push-lawnmower; a set of four wireless telephone handsets; the “classic” version of the game Stratego; a sleek toaster that accommodates four bagel halves at one time; a gargantuan crock pot;  a Weber barbecue grill, plus accessories; an Ooma internet phone box; cables to link our TV to our PC; and likely myriad other items my dear husband and children have acquired while I’ve been out of the house. My better half chooses only those items that will be shipped for free; Amazon’s virtual shelves are so full of inventory that there are usually many such free-shipping options in each product category. The prices are very competitive; my husband comparison-shops across big-box online and brick-and-mortar stores – Amazon is often more than a few bucks cheaper. By the way, a recent encounter with Swedish low-price retailer Ikea – in which we bought about $1,000 worth of put-it-together-yourself furniture only to have to pay a hefty $100 delivery charge and wait a week for the stuff to show up (which is the longest if ever takes an Amazon item to arrive)  – makes me think its business model may be in danger. If we can buy anything we want via Amazon, and find plenty of free-delivery options, why go back to Ikea?