Further (Retail) Evolution In Action

Last month, I wrote about a rumor public accusation that Amazon.com was getting out of firearms-related product sales.  As part of that, I communicated with Amazon's customer relations staff and received the following reply:

Hi William,

I'm Amanda Nix of Amazon.com's Executive Customer Relations team. Jeff Bezos received your email and asked me to respond on his behalf.

We appreciate your feedback and have forwarded it to the correct team internally.

Thanks for choosing Amazon.com.

Regards,

Amanda Nix
Executive Customer Relations
Amazon.com

Now, I am very definitely not calling Ms. Nix anything remotely like a fibber based solely on my own cynicism regarding Jeff Bezos' reading habits, but ...  :)

Subsequent to that email exchange I have noticed several examples of this type of semi-specific link to Amazon.com's continuing to offer a product line-up that specifically caters to firearms shooters interests, without any sort of obvious exterior motivation for the notice (a topically related holiday or other public event for example).

Causation?  Correlation? Wish-fulfillment fantasy?

Other than the last (all too possible) suggestion, I can't say - and Jeff remains conspicuously enigmatic on the question, but as an exercise in strategy this offers an excellent example of the principle of defeating an attack via indirect (and less expensive) means.

By having arguably the most influential individual Amazon.com affiliate periodically make note of an otherwise unremarkable retail product offered by Amazon.com (and there may well be others; I don't keep track of Jeff and the gang's sales metrics per se), Amazon.com is able to apply the sales leverage generated by its affiliate program directly to its advertising needs of the moment at no additional cost beyond that intrinsic to the affiliate program structure itself.

Sun Tzu would approve, I think.

Which leads me to conclude that this understated-but-determined support of peoples beliefs deserves recognition.  With that in mind, I propose that this April 15th, we who participate in gun ownership acknowledge Amazon.com's refusal to bow to political (or other public and private) pressure to abandon our market interests by purchasing something gun-related from Amazon.com on that calendar date. 

I expect most firearms shooters at least are familiar with the concept of April 15th being BAG (Buy A Gun) Day by now; I first learned of it from Kim du Toit's now-defunct blog some 10-or-so years ago.  The idea being to deliberately correlate exercising our freedom to own a firearm with the (for Americans anyway) mandated federal income tax filing date.  In similar fashion, I think extending this notion to include Amazon.com this year would be an excellent means of recognizing their willingness to continue serving our market interests just as they have historically done.  Steadfast support deserves its own reward, I suggest.

This doesn't have to be a special purchase, or even especially large financially; just be sure you submit an order on April 15th and include something gun related along with all the rest.

Worth doing?