It's the Brian Laird Show and WNYC.

Welcome back everybody. I'm Bridget Bergen filling in for Brian today.

It's that time of year when many of us are doing more shopping than usual, looking for gifts for the holidays.

Although many of us love the idea of taking a day to shop our local businesses,

sometimes life gets in the way.

When we're looking for convenience, there's one retailer that many of us

rely on, and that's Amazon. But according to a new piece in the Atlantic's material world

column, many of the tactics that Amazon has employed to

dominate the market may render its very existence obsolete. After all, it's no

longer the cheapest place to buy goods. You know this if you're one of the 100

million Americans who are active users of TIMU, the Chinese marketplace

headquartered in Boston that offers $10 airpods and $3 cooking spatules.

It's also never been the most direct way to get your things,

as we can all just head over to our local target if we still need something in a flash.

So what is it that separates Amazon from rising competitors like TIMU and Shine as well as

long existing ones like Target and Walmart.

Is there something that Amazon Excels at in particular?

Joining us now to answer these questions is Amanda Mall,

staff writer at the Atlantic. Her most recent

piece is called, Is this how Amazon ends? Amanda, welcome to WNYC.

Thank you so much for having me. And Amanda, you start your piece off by describing Amazon's relationship with

customers as a balance that resulted in its enormous profitability.

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