Latest news with #Seattle-based
Time of India
11 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Amazon to invest over Rs 2k crore in India this year to boost infra
Amazon is set to inject $233 million into its Indian operations this year, aiming to bolster infrastructure and enhance delivery speeds. This investment will also fuel the development of new technologies for its fulfillment network. MUMBAI: Amazon will invest $233 million (over Rs 2,000 crore) in India this year to expand and upgrade the company's operations infrastructure in the country. Portions of the capital will also be deployed to build new tools and technology for the firm's fulfilment network as the Seattle-based e-commerce company takes on deep-pocketed startups Zepto, Zomato, and Swiggy in the cash-guzzling quick commerce space. "This new investment builds on top of Amazon's investments in creating an ops network that helps the company deliver to all serviceable pin codes across India. This investment will enhance processing capacity, improve fulfilment speed, and increase efficiency across the company's operations network that will help Amazon serve customers across India faster," the firm said in a statement on Thursday. For Amazon, which entered India twelve years ago and was largely operating in a two-player e-commerce market alongside Walmart-controlled Flipkart for a good few years, competition has now grown. Startups such as Meesho, backed by storied investors like SoftBank, are foraying into the market and carving a space of their own by targeting a whole new set of customers who were underserved. Conglomerates such as Reliance Industries and Tata Group are also investing in e-commerce. Besides, startups Swiggy, Zepto, and Zomato's Blinkit have created a growing market for 10-minute deliveries in India, a new challenge for Amazon, which was late to enter the quick commerce space. Stay informed with the latest business news, updates on bank holidays and public holidays . AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
The Star
15 hours ago
- Business
- The Star
Amazon orders employees to relocate to Seattle and other hubs
New directive: The relocation policy will affect thousands of Amazon employees on several teams. —Reuters NEW YORK: Inc is ordering some corporate employees to move closer to their managers and teams, roiling a workforce already worried about job cuts and warnings from the top that artificial intelligence (AI) will shrink their ranks in the coming years. Workers are being told to relocate to such cities as Seattle, Arlington, Virginia and Washington DC, which in some cases would require them to move across the country, according to sources. Amazon is mostly rolling out the mandate in one-on-one meetings and town halls rather than sending out a mass email, said the sources. The relocation policy will affect thousands of employees on several teams. Mid-career professionals with children in school and partners in established careers are reluctant to make big moves in light of Amazon's belt-tightening efforts. An Amazon spokesperson said 'for more than a year now, some teams have been working to bring their teammates closer together to help them be as effective as possible, but there isn't a one-size-fits all approach and there hasn't been a change in our approach as a company.' Amazon employees have been sharing information about the relocation mandate on the company's internal slack channels, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. One employee said the manager informed the team of the need to relocate and told them they had 30 days to make a decision. Then they had 60 days to either resign or begin their relocation process, according to the sources, who said they were told there would be no severance for employees who resigned in lieu of relocating. The company spokesperson said 'we hear from the majority of our teammates that they love the energy from being located together, and whenever someone chooses to or is asked to relocate, we work with them to offer support based on their individual circumstances.' When chief executive officer Andy Jassy ordered employees to return to the office five days a week beginning earlier this year, there was no requirement that they move to specific offices. Amazon has satellite workplaces around the country, including major metropolitan areas like New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas and Austin, giving workers some flexibility about where they lived. Many employees were hired to fully remote positions during the pandemic. In 2022, Jassy initiated Amazon's biggest-ever round of corporate job cuts, which ultimately eliminated 27,000 positions across the Seattle-based company. There have since been several smaller rounds of reductions targeting particular departments. Telling workers to relocate will likely prompt some to quit, which can be a less expensive way to reduce headcount than executing layoffs and paying severance packages. Jassy on Tuesday said he expected the company's workforce to shrink in coming years due to AI advancements that will be capable of performing some employee functions. — Bloomberg
Time of India
a day ago
- Business
- Time of India
Amazon to invest $233 million in India to expand operations infra
MUMBAI: Amazon will invest $233 million (over Rs 2,000 crore) in India this year to expand and upgrade the company's operations infrastructure in the country. Portions of the capital will also be deployed to build new tools and technology for the firm's fulfilment network as the Seattle-based e-commerce company takes on deep-pocketed startups Zepto, Zomato and Swiggy in the cash guzzling quick commerce space. 'This new investment builds on top of Amazon's investments in creating an ops network that helps the company deliver to all serviceable pin-codes across India. This investment will enhance processing capacity, improve fulfilment speed and increase efficiency across the company's operations network that will help Amazon serve customers across India faster,' the firm said in a statement on Thursday. For Amazon which entered India twelve years back and was largely operating in a two-player e-commerce market alongside Walmart controlled Flipkart for a good few years, competition has now grown with startups such as Meesho backed by storied investors like SoftBank foraying into the market and carving a space of its own by targeting a whole new set of customers who were underserved. Big conglomerates such as Reliance Industries and The Tata Group are also investing in e-commerce. Besides, startups Swiggy, Zepto and Zomato's Blinkit have created a growing market for 10-minute deliveries in India, a new challenge for Amazon which has been late to enter the quick commerce space. As more Indians become tech savvy and move online to shop for everything ranging from groceries to apparel, companies are sharpening strategies to stay ahead of the game. Amazon plans to take its India investment to $26 billion by 2030. 'By strengthening our infrastructure capabilities….we're positioning Amazon to better serve customers throughout India,' said Abhinav Singh, VP, operations at Amazon India and Australia. Amazon will also expand initiatives for improving the health and financial well-being of employees and associates across the operations network. Stay informed with the latest business news, updates on bank holidays and public holidays . AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Miami Herald
a day ago
- Business
- Miami Herald
Zillow says it's fighting for buyers. Compass says it's fighting for sellers. What if neither is fighting for you?
As two real estate giants escalate a war over how homes should be listed for sale online, both sides say they're acting in the interest of consumers. Both sides also stand to make a lot of money if they win. The issue intensified at the end of 2024, when Compass, the country's largest brokerage by sales volume, began advising its sellers to use a three-phased marketing approach - making their homes visible only to Compass agents and clients as a "private" listing, making them viewable only via and reserving the option to later make them public on popular house-hunting sites like Redfin and Zillow. In the real estate industry, listings are currency. Faced with thousands of them disappearing from its site, Zillow punched back. The Seattle-based company, starting at the end of June, plans to block any former private listings from appearing on its site - an ultimatum it hopes brings an end to Compass's practice of selectively sharing listings before they appear on big search portals. Redfin will follow with a similar ban in September. Each of these players pitches itself as a pro-consumer brand. Compass says its selective marketing approach offers sellers privacy and control. Some sellers want to market to more exclusive groups before their home appears on big listing sites, which feature details like days on market and price cuts, which can signal a seller is willing to negotiate on price. Zillow and Redfin say they are for transparency in the market, which is good for both homebuyers and sellers. The only way to know a home's true price, they argue, is to advertise it as broadly as possible. But Brian Boero, chief executive of 1000watt, a marketing agency for residential real estate companies, says their pro-consumer stances are largely just messaging. "These companies are using the consumer as almost like a human shield here to protect their business interests," Boero said. "They may believe these things sincerely, but this is first and foremost about rational self-interest." Should Compass win the private listings war, it would upend the paradigm in home listings that buyers have grown used to over the last two decades. When Zillow and Redfin arrived in the mid-2000s, they promised to democratize the home search, pulling back the curtain on a market once controlled by agents and the local databases they operated called multiple listing services. For buyers, the experience changed overnight: Homes that were once buried in classified ads or hidden in books that could only be viewed alongside a broker were suddenly just a click away. Sellers' agents at first rejoiced - they didn't have to work as hard to advertise their properties, and listing on the sites was free. But someone was paying: buyers' agents. When a prospective buyer clicks a listing's "Contact an Agent" button, Zillow or Redfin sells that inquiry to a paying agent. They also take as much as 40% of the agent's commission if they close the sale. Brokerages like Compass have long bristled at the steep fee. But as home sales drag for a third straight year, Compass is trying to change the game. By publishing listings exclusively on it cuts out the referral middlemen. "Organized real estate has been implementing rules that have been stripping homeowners and their agents of flexibility and choice," Rory Golod, president of Growth and Communications at Compass, said in an interview. "They are trying to monopolize where inventory goes and how people sell." Redfin and Zillow, of course, have their own interests to protect - as well as the model that's come to shape the modern home-buying experience. "This isn't just about Zillow or Redfin - the internet has changed home search for the better, where every buyer can have access to all of the inventory," said Joe Rath, Redfin's head of industry relations. "Gatekeeping in any form is antithetical to the internet." Matt Kreamer, Zillow's spokesperson, said that transparency is core to Zillow's philosophy: "We believe that home listings that are available to some buyers should be available to all buyers," he said. Their calls for openness also happen to preserve their business: more listings, more traffic, more fees. Ultimately, Boero, the marketing chief, believes that Zillow's market power will force Compass to blink. "Zillow is the most powerful brand in the history of housing," Boero said. "You just can't imagine not having your home on Zillow as a home seller - it sounds like a stupid thing to have happen." But others see an opportunity for Compass to prevail in bringing traffic directly to its site. "Southwest Airlines didn't sell tickets on any of the online aggregators for years, and they're doing great," said Mike DelPrete, a real estate tech consultant. "People look at multiple sources." The dispute appears to be heading toward a compromise that would allow both Compass and the listing aggregators to uphold their business models, rather than a solution centered around buyers and sellers. Redfin's Joe Rath said his company would be open to hiding certain data, like days on market and price drops, if that's what it took to keep listings public. "We would much rather give ground there and have the listing," he said, "than not have the listing at all." Because all of these companies are paid a percentage of a home's ultimate sales price, it benefits both the brokerages and the search portals to keep buyers in the dark about details that might lead to a lower price. The battle over transparency, it seems, has limits. Whether Compass or the search portals win, both victories would also preserve an as-yet unshakable status quo in real estate: a 2% to 3% commission for buyers' agents. A landmark legal settlement earlier this year threatened that fee structure paradigm - but so far, traditional models have held, although a few flat-fee agencies have broken the mold. So why are the rules governing home listings decided by two major corporations that stand to benefit from pushing prices as high as possible? "With how important housing is to our economy, society and individuals, there is a question of why the information about homes for sale isn't federally regulated," Boero said. But government intervention in home sales isn't likely to happen at the federal level under President Donald Trump, who has promoted deregulation and free markets. The state's regulator, the California Department of Real Estate, lacks the legal authority to make a ruling on private listings that would tip the scales toward either Compass or Zillow. But it can, for example, require agents to give sellers adequate warning on the financial consequences of not appearing on the major home listing sites, said Summer Goralik, a former investigator with the department who now works as a compliance consultant to brokerages. "They'll need to explore whether brokers are breaching fiduciary duty to sellers," Goralik said. "Are they giving all of the information that seller needs to make an informed decision about listing privately?" For her part, Goralik doesn't believe the push for private sales and putting listings back into the brokerages' hands helps buyers or sellers. "A wide-scale campaign for private listings seems to do more harm than good," she said. "It seems like we'd be going back in time. I'm for the future." Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Amazon orders employees to relocate to Seattle and other hubs
(Bloomberg) — Inc. (AMZN) is ordering some corporate employees to move closer to their managers and teams, roiling a workforce already worried about job cuts and warnings from the top that artificial intelligence will shrink their ranks in the coming years. Security Concerns Hit Some of the World's 'Most Livable Cities' JFK AirTrain Cuts Fares 50% This Summer to Lure Riders Off Roads Taser-Maker Axon Triggers a NIMBY Backlash in its Hometown How E-Scooters Conquered (Most of) Europe NYC Congestion Toll Cuts Manhattan Gridlock by 25%, RPA Reports Workers are being told to relocate to such cities as Seattle; Arlington, Virginia; and Washington DC, which in some cases would require them to move across the country, according to people familiar with the situation. Amazon is mostly rolling out the mandate in one-on-one meetings and town halls rather than sending out a mass email, said the people, who requested anonymity because they aren't authorized to discuss company plans. One of the people said the relocation policy will affect thousands of employees on several teams. Mid-career professionals with children in school and partners in established careers are reluctant to make big moves in light of Amazon's belt-tightening efforts. An Amazon spokesperson said 'for more than a year now, some teams have been working to bring their teammates closer together to help them be as effective as possible, but there isn't a one-size-fits all approach and there hasn't been a change in our approach as a company.' Amazon employees have been sharing information about the relocation mandate on the company's internal slack channels, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. One employee said their manager informed the team of the need to relocate and told them they had 30 days to make a decision. Then they had 60 days to either resign or begin their relocation process, according to the person, who said they were told there would be no severance for employees who resigned in lieu of relocating. The company spokesperson said 'we hear from the majority of our teammates that they love the energy from being located together, and whenever someone chooses to or is asked to relocate, we work with them to offer support based on their individual circumstances.' When Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy ordered employees to return to the office five days a week beginning earlier this year, there was no requirement that they move to specific offices. Amazon has satellite workplaces around the country, including major metropolitan areas like New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas and Austin, giving workers some flexibility about where they lived. Many employees were hired to fully remote positions during the pandemic. In 2022, Jassy initiated Amazon's biggest-ever round of corporate job cuts, which ultimately eliminated 27,000 positions across the Seattle-based company. There have since been several smaller rounds of reductions targeting particular departments. Telling workers to relocate will likely prompt some to quit, which can be a less expensive way to reduce headcount than executing layoffs and paying severance packages. Jassy on Tuesday said he expects the company's workforce to shrink in coming years due to AI advancements that will be capable of performing some employee functions. The announcement, while not entirely unexpected, set off a round of hand-wringing on internal messaging boards. Ken Griffin on Trump, Harvard and Why Novice Investors Won't Beat the Pros Is Mark Cuban the Loudmouth Billionaire that Democrats Need for 2028? The US Has More Copper Than China But No Way to Refine All of It How a Tiny Middleman Could Access Two-Factor Login Codes From Tech Giants Can 'MAMUWT' Be to Musk What 'TACO' Is to Trump? ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
