Ask HN: Why has no one created an “Amazon” driven by local businesses?
I&#x27;m sure I&#x27;m not the first one to have this glaringly obvious idea, so I put it up for discussion. I was largely motivated by horror stories of Amazon workers having to walk 15 minutes to the break room for their - you guessed it - 15 minute break, along with a very strong desire to support my local neighbourhood&#x2F;city shops.<p>The concept is an &quot;Amazon&quot; style shopping experience which supports local businesses. Let&#x27;s ignore shipping logistics and synchronising stock inventory for now. Why is there no single global site for consumers to search local neighbourhood inventory for a product as a starting point. Yes, large department and retail stores often have nearest branch stock checking and online checkout, but I still feel the experience is frictious and fragmented. I understand many small businesses already operate on Amazon and eBay through fulfillment programmes. It seems like a fairly concrete and scalable problem to solve in principle, but probably quite difficult to operate sustainably.