Corona Daily 306: One Click Shopping

Sometime in March, I ordered a pack of Gillet fusion blades. Then India went into a lockdown for nearly two months. In June and July, I was still waitlisted for the blades. Finally, I cancelled the order. Amazon stocks more than 100 million items with a promise to deliver most of them in forty-eight hours. In the USA, more than 100 million households are Amazon prime members.

Amazon, like most of the world, relies on Chinese manufacturing. China is the largest source of consumer goods. Even when things are manufactured locally, they may depend on China. A factory in Sacramento, USA makes ketchup, but the tomato paste, bottles and caps are imported from China. Cowboy hats and cowboy boots ($85), classic American symbols, are exclusively made in China. In late January, China went into a lockdown and the country’s manufacturing came to a sudden halt for weeks. For the last thirty years, companies like Walmart and Amazon have focused on “just in time” by excelling in logistics. The stocks started depleting.

In February and March, toilet paper orders jumped 186% on Amazon, year on year. Cough and cold medicines orders went up by 862%. Americans started ordering popular card games for the lockdown. They were told Amazon couldn’t supply those games any more. In Europe, consumers were trying to order wine and ham, web cameras, printer cartridges, fitness equipment. Orders for standing desks and inflatable swimming pools, particularly for kids, went through the roof. But many of these items were out of stock.

Because when the Chinese manufacturing resumed, goods still needed to be shipped from China to the USA and other countries. The shipping industry had a labour crisis with thousands of workers stranded on the ships because their countries wouldn’t open the doors for them.

Packaging was another issue. What we order on Amazon is packaged in plastic pouches, bottles, aluminum cans, cardboard boxes, bubble wraps. All these materials must be manufactured as well, before a product can be shipped. The liquid hand sanitizer was produced in three shifts, but the bottle manufacturing lagged much behind.

Once the products and packaging were made and shipped to the ports, trucks must distribute them to warehouses and stores. But long-distance trucking had become complicated. Lockdowns had imposed serious restrictions on vehicle movement. The cafes and hot meal stalls on highways, so essential for the long rides, were shut.

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Workers at Amazon warehouses were falling ill or just staying at home. In the UK, unions called their working conditions “hellish”. In April, workers in the USA staged a mass protest demanding immediate closure of more than 50 warehouses with positive cases. Amazon fired six workers who spoke against the company. The reasons given ranged from vulgar language to not following social distancing. Tim Bray, the vice president, resigned disappointed with the level of toxicity in the company culture.

By 22 May, eight Amazon employees died of Covid-19. A lawsuit was launched against Amazon in New York on 4 June.

Last week, Amazon officially admitted a total 20,000 of its employees tested positive between 1 March and 19 September.

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Despite all this, Amazon became the biggest winner of the pandemic. Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, made $88 billion in the course of the pandemic. Sales went up by 40%, and profits doubled. As to how or why this happened, I will discuss in tomorrow’s article.

Ravi