Amazon Logistics: Regionalization, Cross-Docking & Fulfillment Cost Optimization

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I would like to discuss two things about Amazon. The first one, which I guess everybody talks about, is the opportunities to reduce the cost to serve. My first question is about understanding your opinion of Andy Jassy as a CEO. Do you think the company has changed its mindset since Andy Jassy took the helm, putting much more effort into productivity and cost optimization?

Yes, absolutely. I would say pre-Jassy, the entire focus of the business was on top-line revenue growth and market share with little or no regard to profitability. That would come later. Perhaps Andy Jassy is cut from that same fabric, but in Q1 of 2022, when the numbers really came in with red ink, he showed a lot of discipline. I think he's made a number of very profound changes, especially to the retail supply chain that I follow. This leads me to believe that he's being very responsible about ensuring the profitability not only of the retail supply chain side of the business but also each individual business division. His focus is to get the whole company back on track, and I think he's done a fantastic job. That's my opinion.

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Regarding their primary regional network strategy, how far do you think Amazon can go to extract efficiencies from that movement?

Eventually, there's only so much you can really be smart about when you're talking about, what is it, 300 million items? It's just too many. Many of those items only sell a couple of times a year. We call that slow-moving, or lumpy, demand. It's very hard to forecast with any degree of accuracy for most of those items. It's really the high-velocity type of products that you want to get good at. Quite honestly, even before they regionalized, most of those items were sitting in all of the regions anyway.

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