America's No. 1 financial conglomerate

Chapter 529 The Third Party is Poised to Launch

Inside the office, Bezos's hand, holding a pen, twirled rapidly.

The metal wastebasket on the right side of the desk was already overflowing with crumpled pieces of waste paper, some of which spilled over the edge and were scattered on the light gray carpet.

After an unknown amount of time, the pen gradually slowed down and was finally thrown onto the table with a thud.

Bezos raised his head, rubbed his throbbing temples, a resolute glint in his deep eyes, and said with unusual firmness, "Tomorrow we will hold a press conference to officially announce the full launch of Amazon's food delivery service."

"Tomorrow?" Blackburn, sitting opposite him, had an incredulous look on his face. His previously calm tone instantly rose, tinged with urgency. "Isn't this too hasty?"

"Our existing offline stores only cover 21 states on the East and West coasts, and these partners are mostly concentrated in large cities with populations of over 50,000. Even in these core cities, we have not yet achieved full coverage, and many remote communities in these cities are still unserved."

He paused, trying to soften his tone so the other party would seriously consider his opinion. "I think a more prudent approach is to first expand the pilot program in Washington State, which is our home base. Our partner stores have already covered most of the major cities in the state, and we've even established stable partnerships with small towns with populations of 20,000 to 30,000."

"Starting with Washington State, we will gradually expand to surrounding states, which will not only accumulate operational experience but also avoid user complaints caused by insufficient coverage."

"One of the core competitive advantages of the food delivery business is delivery speed and coverage. If consumers see our GG advertisements but find that they cannot enjoy the service in their area, it will only have a negative impact on Amazon's brand image and may even trigger negative public opinion, which will be extremely detrimental to our subsequent business expansion."

Bezos frowned slightly, leaning back in his chair, his tone tinged with displeasure. "Is the progress this slow?"

He clearly hadn't anticipated that the rollout of offline partner stores would be this slow. Amazon didn't just start planning this recently; they'd been making preparations for a month already. Despite his public statements expressing skepticism about flash sales, he actually sees great potential in the food delivery model.

According to his idea, Amazon's partner stores should not cover the entire United States, but they should be fully deployed in all states on the East and West coasts.

Surprisingly, even large cities with populations of over 50,000 are not covered.

Blackburn looked helpless and shrugged: "There's nothing we can do. The merchants who partner with Flash Sale all refuse to work with us."

"Damn Ernst!" Bezos muttered under his breath, lightly slamming his fist on the table.

"Notify the legal department to immediately initiate an antitrust lawsuit against Flashbuy, accusing them of abusing their market dominance and restricting merchants' freedom to cooperate."

Blackburn was taken aback, then shook his head, his tone tinged with bitterness. "I'm afraid this approach won't work. As far as I know, Flashbuy has not issued any explicit order prohibiting merchants from cooperating with other platforms. All the merchants' refusal is voluntary. From a legal perspective, it's difficult for us to find substantial evidence of their monopoly."

"Voluntary?" Bezos sneered. "Sometimes, not explicitly requiring something is more deterrent than explicitly prohibiting it."

His gaze drifted out the window, his thoughts returning to the recent AA incident.

Flash sale's move to make an example of someone really gave all the partner stores a big shock.

That was too ruthless; so ruthless that they were trembling with fear after the incident.

With Flash Sales already dominating the food delivery market, Amazon currently poses no real threat. For merchants, offending Flash Sales to pursue uncertain orders from Amazon is clearly not a wise choice.

Before Amazon's food delivery business truly establishes itself, the safest option for them is to avoid trouble, since flash sales have already made them incredibly wealthy.

"I know it will be difficult to win legally." Bezos looked away, his tone calm but meaningful. "The purpose of suing Flashbuy is not to find loopholes in their laws, but to put pressure on Flashbuy through public opinion and force them to make a public statement clarifying that there are no restrictions on their partner merchants from cooperating with other companies."

Blackburn remained skeptical, asking in bewilderment, "Even with Flash Sale making such a public statement, will any merchants really be willing to risk partnering with us?"

Who knows if you're telling the truth or not? Nobody wants to be the first to stick their neck out, so there's no bird to be shot.

What can you do if someone chooses not to cooperate?

"Profit is a powerful motivator," Bezos said confidently. "There will always be businesses willing to give it a try."

After saying that, he seemed to suddenly remember something, "By the way, how's the situation at AiTech? Is the supply of ordering machines keeping up?"

Blackburn nodded. "Things are going very smoothly with AIT. As long as you order in advance and confirm the time, they can deliver on time. Moreover, the price AIT gives us is exactly the same as the price they sell to the stores that partner with Flash Sale, without any markup."

"The merchants who have signed cooperation agreements with us have successively purchased this equipment from AIT, and the installation and commissioning of the equipment are progressing steadily."

For a food delivery business to work, partner stores need to have ordering machines; this is a basic requirement.

Currently, in the US market, apart from AxonTech, no other manufacturers produce this type of professional food ordering machine. This is mainly because the market was previously monopolized by Flash Sale, leaving no room for other manufacturers to enter. Bezos nodded slightly; he had anticipated this. Ernst would not leave any leverage in such a crucial环节, allowing Amazon to seize evidence of a monopoly.

As a third-party equipment supplier, maintaining price neutrality is the safest option for AI Technology. Otherwise, if it is found to have an improper relationship with Flash Sale, it may face an investigation.

"However," Blackburn hesitated for a moment before saying, "these businesses have quite a few objections."

"I had that in mind." Bezos's tone showed no surprise; he had expected this all along.

If these merchants were connected to a flash sale delivery platform, they would buy the ordering machine without hesitation, even if the price doubled, let alone $980 per set.

Because they know that they can quickly recoup the cost of the equipment through flash sale platforms.

However, Amazon's food delivery platform is brand new, without any market data to support it, and no one can guarantee future profits.

If it weren't for the flash sale, which caused a sharp drop in sales for these non-partner stores, they wouldn't have tried this desperate measure.

"That's settled then. Amazon's delivery service will be fully launched tomorrow."

Seeing that Blackburn was about to try to dissuade him, Bezos raised his hand to interrupt him, "I know now is not the best time to go live, but the situation is pressing, and we don't have time to wait any longer."

His expression turned serious. "I just received confirmation that Walmart Online has reached a financing agreement with Wall Street investment firms."

"So fast? Which organization?" Blackburn finally understood why Bezos was in such a hurry. Walmart's online platform was the e-commerce division that had been spun off from Walmart.

There had been rumors that many investment institutions were interested in investing in it, but I didn't expect that the deal had already been finalized.

Once the funding is in place, Walmart will quickly enter the food delivery market.

This isn't a question of whether they want to or not; it's a hard condition that investors impose on them when investing.

Through flash sales, all investors realized that the user accumulation speed of the food delivery business is unmatched by companies in other internet sectors.

Because eating is a basic human need, almost all internet users are potential users of food delivery services.

Even those who don't usually go online need daily necessities like rice, oil, and salt. The online ordering and home delivery services offered by food delivery platforms, coupled with their price advantages, are extremely attractive to consumers.

Once a large enough user base is accumulated, an IPO can be quickly launched, allowing for the harvesting of capital.

Therefore, capital favors e-commerce, and even more so e-commerce businesses that include food delivery.

The food delivery market is currently dominated by Flash Sale, and now Amazon has just entered the fray. If Walmart launches and makes a strong entry, the future market competition will only become more intense.

Therefore, it is essential to seize a portion of users and market share before Walmart officially launches its service.

"Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, and I heard Merrill Lynch have all invested." Blackburn suddenly smiled, but with a hint of bleakness. "This isn't an e-commerce battle; it's a war in online finance!"

Flash sales are backed by PayPal. Amazon's ability to gain support from Wall Street is entirely due to Bill.

Now that Volvo has launched its product and secured investment from Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase, it will naturally use JP Nline, which they developed.

Bezos didn't discuss it in detail, since it had little to do with Amazon.

He took out the paper he had just written on and handed it to Blackburn.

Blackburn glanced at it curiously, and those few words surprised him greatly.

0 commission, subsidies, and corporate annuities.

"Do you know how much cost pressure this will put on us?"

Bezos's face revealed a ruthless glint: "You can't catch a wolf without risking your cub. Flash sales are suffering even more than we are."