I enjoyed this, but much more interesting was a link from one of the comments to this talk by Jared Spool, "user interface expert."
<i>Revealing Design Treasures From The Amazon</i><p><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/jmspool/revealing-design-treasures-from-the-amazon?type=presentation" rel="nofollow">http://www.slideshare.net/jmspool/revealing-design-treasures...</a><p>Kind of a breezy discussion of what Amazon does to improve the user experience and its bottom line, and why "Do it like Amazon" may not work for you.<p>Slide number 86/91 was a jaw-dropper for me. It was part of his section on "never forget the business."<p>What the slide shows is that any retail business buys product at day zero and pays for it at day 45.<p>Best Buy turns their inventory over in 74 days. So on average a product is eventually bought by a customer at day 74, and Best Buy gets the money at day 76 (processing time).<p>All of the days between 45 and 76 are debt.<p>Amazon turns their inventory in 20 days. So on average they get customer money on day 22 for a product that Amazon bought on day zero. All the days between 22 (got the money) and 45 (must pay the supplier) are <i>float</i>.<p>Which is why, according to Spool, Amazon can sell most things cheaper than everyone else. They focus on getting shit out the door quickly.<p>I'm sure that's not the only thing. But the fact of the float must contribute quite a bit, and is probably very welcome.