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Amazon.com Reporting This Holiday Season Their "Best Ever"
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Dec 29, 2008 12:12 PM
from the at-least-someone-doesn't-need-a-bailout dept.
from the at-least-someone-doesn't-need-a-bailout dept.
In a refreshing break from all the doom and gloom, Amazon.com is calling this holiday season their best ever. Reporting a 44 percent rise in the number of items sold, they are refusing to provide actual dollar amounts, so it is still a very subjective measurement. "Amazon customers ordered more than 6.3 million items on Dec. 15, compared with roughly 5.4 million on its peak day last year, the company said. It shipped more than 5.6 million products on its best day, a 44 percent rise over 2007, when it shipped about 3.9 million on its busiest day. The company did not provide dollar figures and wouldn't say whether the average value of orders had changed, and the jumps it reported Friday are in line with increases Amazon has seen since it started releasing the figures in 2002."
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Money is tight (Score:5, Interesting)
People are going to look for better deals, and when some item can be found for 20 to 50% less online, often with free shipping, of course they are going to turn to the big internet sites.
Re:Money is tight (Score:5, Interesting)
I think people look for deals whether the economy is good or bad. People generally want more than what they have regardless so better deals mean they can buy more stuff. Money gets tight you might see some impact on the wanna-be-rich items, like Cadillac Escalades and Coach handbags and crap like that, but staples still sell.
And to add on to the 'doom and gloom' comment in the editorial: I live kind of in the boonies. Over the holidays I went to see family in a mid sized city and I expected to see some evidence of the economic times being hard. It was Indianapolis, so a lot of auto industry jobs. But every junk chain restaurant we went to was packed to capacity and had hour plus waits. Every mall parking lot was full. People at Fry's were carrying out big screen TVs and new MacBooks. Plenty of SUVs rolling around.
I know housing is bad, and I know some residential contractors who are slow. And the auto industry is looking bad. But I don't get the newsmans's assertion that things are as bad as the Great Depression. My grandmother washed her paper towels and dried them on a clothesline in the Great Depression. I didn't see any paper towels on any clotheslines anywhere. Or any clotheslines at all for that matter. People seem to be getting along well enough. If Texas Roadhouse has a 45 minute wait for a lousy steak (and the closest restaurant [storyinn.com] to me is still 100% full every night) things must not be as bad as we are being led to believe.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I agree... obviously some places are doing better than others, but I'm not buying what the media is selling. I keep reading about these DEEP price cuts everyone is offering... I keep hearing about them, but I never see them. I've seen places bundling a few extra things with core products (like printers and so forth with laptops), but I'd rather have the core item at a reduced price...
I've been monitoring several HDTVs that I'm interested in for the past few months... the prices range from $1200 to $1500 o
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, money being tight recently got me to open my eyes...and what I have found has been really enlightening.
Take the Brother label maker that I got for xmass. I realized that I needed one about the same time my mother was hitting me up for gift ideas. So I looked around, and found both that it was a great idea...and I better tell her where to buy it!
Why? Simple... I found the price ranged from about $45 to $95 depending solely on where you bought it from, and I wasn't even looking at shipping! Seriousl
Amazon's real skill: hooking the media... (Score:5, Interesting)
See Slate's Amazon.con: How the online retail giant hoodwinks the press [slate.com] for details on why this story is idiotic:
Some, but not all, of these accounts went on to concede that Amazon would not provide revenue data for the entire shopping season, or even for its "peak day." Nor would Amazon confirm or deny that one or both of these revenue figures exceeded those for 2007. Without this information, we can't possibly know whether Amazon had a good year in comparison either to other retailers or to its own sales during the previous Christmas shopping season.
The same reasoning or lack thereof applies to the Kindle (which I don't like [wordpress.com] for its DRM and other problems), since Amazon won't release sales numbers for it.
So, did Amazon have their best ever holiday season? Maybe: but we're unlikely to know enough about the metrics used to make this claim to know.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But the numbers do little to tell us how good (or bad) Amazon's season really was. The company didn't disclose whether shoppers bought more or fewer high-priced items than in previous years or whether discounts ate into profit margins. It didn't disclose revenue or even the total volume of products it shipped throughout the holiday season.
What's more, as consumers do more and more of their shopping online, where Amazon is the leading retailer, a "record" season at Amazon is hardly surprising. Amazon has claimed that its holidays were the "best ever" or "busiest ever" every year since at least 2002.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"The same reasoning or lack thereof applies to the Kindle (which I don't like [wordpress.com] for its DRM and other problems), since Amazon won't release sales numbers for it. "
The title of your blog is "Product Review: Kindle" but did you actually receive and review a kindle, or are you just pointing out the reasons you wouldn't like a kindle? Nowhere in your "review" do I see mention of you actually having and using the Kindle. I just see an argument as to why you don't like it (or I guess more accurate
Re:Amazon's real skill: hooking the media... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, every single thing I ordered from Amazon got there on time. Even the thing that said 'it probably won't arrive before Christmas'.
And not just Christmas stuff... Everything I've ever ordered has come in properly. I order enough that I signed up for their 'Amazon Prime' service, even. That's a lot of stuff.
It sounds to me like you're the victim of extremely bad luck.
Parent
Re:Amazon's real skill: hooking the media... (Score:5, Informative)
Not only did everything I ordered from Amazon get there on time. But when the things my folks ordered for me got returned as undeliverable because the moron of a substitute postman covering their route didn't feel like getting out of his toy car during a rain storm and didn't think to just hold them at the post office; Amazon not only reshipped a new order with a 24 hour turn around and bumped it up to 1st day delivery via UPS, all for free. (Man that's a run on sentence from hell.)
Parent
Re:Amazon's real skill: hooking the media... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
He's not going to instruct his bean counters to let on with the truth, which is that I really prefer tactile books, with pages that you turn and bookmark with real bookmarks.
There, fixed that for you. Some of us like not having bookmarks fall out of our books, or being able to carry several books with us in less space than one physical book.
This is the last Xmas I use Amazon. They botched every order, and when subcontractors ran out of stock on toys, they all waited until Xmas Eve to let me know they wouldn't be filling my order. One went ahead and charged my credit card anyhow.
Everything we ordered from Amazon, even stuff from "subcontractors" (which aren't, they're third-party sites that basically pay a fee to have their stuff listed on Amazon), came promptly when expected. Sucks to be you. Please provide feedback about the retailers who screwed you over, so that those millions of us who will continue to shop
Very subjective... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because they sold more items doesn't mean they made as much of a profit as they would have during a non-holiday season.
People are buying more tangible items at cut rate prices instead of handing out gift cards - this helps retailers anywhere move more items.
The kick-to-the-balls is when the profit enters the equation - if the profit margin on those 6.3 million items was razor thin (or there were more "loss leaders" than usual) then this report is crap.
Online is the only way to shop these days (Score:5, Insightful)
The big-box retailers taking over all the specialty shops across the US are actually reducing the diversity of goods available locally (the ACE hardware actually has more depth than Lowes in many areas for example). So aside from the obvious lower prices and "dropped at your door" convenience, there just aren't any local options for lots of us living in generica if "best Buy" doesn't carry your desired trinket.
Sheldon
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"The big-box retailers taking over all the specialty shops across the US are actually reducing the diversity of goods available locally (the ACE hardware actually has more depth than Lowes in many areas for example)..."
While I agree in spirit with the post, and also agree that if you don't live in a major metro area, you are limited to the stock on hand of big box retailers, I call BS on the above statement about ACE. Show me some evidence, somewhere, that any ACE hardware has greater diversity in either di
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
ACE: 4-40 nuts and bolts
Lowes: FAIL
ACE: Individual metric taps
Lowes: FAIL
ACE: Chrome plated decorative nuts and bolts
Lowes: FAIL
The list is long...
I'm no fan of ACE, but the big boxes really are very limited in each department. they look like they have a lot because they have a ton of departments.
Sheldon
But NPR told me.... (Score:5, Funny)
The media has been rooting for a recession since Clinton left office.
NPR especially, going so far as to tell me how this is basically the great depression. Yet, everywhere I go I see people driving SUV's to the various outlets to buy crap they don't need.
Amazon represents the second-best reason for a free market economy: efficiency. They can bring you goods and services cheaper than their competitors, you win, they win, competitor looses.
Oh...and I drink YOUR milkshake.
Re:But NPR told me.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It will be the great depression until a President that NPR likes is in office. Then it will only be a depression in looking back at who caused it.
Media bias is interesting and tricky, especially when it uses different "subtle" terminology in different contexts of different people to throw spins. Example being "recession" vs. "depression" vs. "setback" vs. "economic trouble" vs. "economic crisis." "Fee" vs. "tax." "Lawsuit" vs. "challenge." You get the idea.
IMO, Amazon's success, if they are being honest which I will give them the benefit of the doubt for, makes sense. I don't think this economic crisis is as bad as most politicians would have us believe (they're still getting paid, right?), and most people still bought gifts... but they might have not gone to Macy's or other "expensive" stores and rather looked for the cheaper options. Tighter money often drives people to look for better deals, not necessarily buy fewer items.
Now, if there was a sudden 50% drop of Americans' TV service, that might point to a serious recession. (for the record, I don't own a TV nor is there one in my house...)
Parent
Re:But NPR told me.... (Score:5, Insightful)
On NPR it is and always has been "Mr. Bush", but it's already "President Obama", and he's not even president yet. That said, I still listen to NPR as my primary radio news outlet. You merely have to understand the context and apply the appropriate amount of salt...
I wouldn't say media bias is "interesting". It just "is". And there are outlets to fit every bias except "neutral".
Unless things get a few orders of magnitude worse, it'll take some serious trickery to look back on this and call it a "depression". People calling it a depression are seriously misinformed as to what the Great Depression was like. People tend to view the problems they are currently experiencing as worse than what happened to other people in the past. It only stands to reason that looking back on this people will see their future economic "crisis" as worse than this one. If you stand back and look at this objectively, even today you would have a hard time saying what we have now is "worse" than what happened in 2000-2002 depending on which metrics you use.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I listen to NPR and Rush both. You're right, it's just a matter of understanding the bias -- the sad part is most people can't see the bias (because they agree with it).
And that's not even the worst of it. Would you believe I've actually gotten into arguments with people who vehemently believed that CNN was a right-wing mouthbox? CNN! I can't capitalize it any stronger or I would! I can't even understand what would have led them to think that, but I get the impression they never actually have watched C
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Amazon's shipping rocks (Score:3, Interesting)
Another order that I did place from a manufacturer website [melissaanddoug.com] did come OK and on time, but it was a nail-biting experience. Although the website offered second-day delivery as an option (actually it was one of those outsourced shopping cart sites), the confirmation e-mail that came directly from the manufacturer said "5-7 business days". I replied to that e-mail asking what was up, but never got a response.
I worry about the day when Amazon gets too big and starts becoming evil (e.g. censorship), but for now, I am a happy and loyal Amazon customer.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Amazon is an outsourced fulfilment house (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon's fulfilment business is up, but that doesn't mean Amazon itself is selling more. More and more, Amazon is doing order processing for others. The fact that they're focusing on number of items shipped rather than revenue probably means revenue didn't go up.
It is the way that they treat their staff (Score:3, Interesting)
With that sort of attitude I would recommend shopping elsewhere until they treat their staff properly.
Re:"Our smallest loss ever!" (Score:5, Informative)
Pointless to respond to an AC, but Amazon has been continuously profitable since 2003.
Parent
Re:"Our smallest loss ever!" (Score:4, Informative)
Let me help you there, chucky:
2007: 476 million
2006: 190 million
2005: 359 million
2004: 588 million
2003: 35 million
2002: -149 million
Really, is this shocking information? That Amazon is profitable?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
10-15% is considered good net profit.
Depends on the industry. Walmart in '07 made 12.7 billion on 378.8 billion of revenue. That's almost exactly the same margin.
Amazon is very up-front with investors that they use cash-flow per share as their main metric rather than earnings per share.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While there are advantages and disadvantages to each, it's not black-and-white. In my opinion, it is too simplistic to look to one metric as a "main" metric, but at least Amazon is upfront about it. They make an argument in their 2004 annual report, right at the front [corporate-ir.net].
I have to admit, it's not a bad argument, and they did manage to survive the dot-bomb... mainly it seems that they would like to take the emphasis off of growth and look more at the long-term health and sustainability of the company.
No (Score:5, Interesting)
10-15% is an average gross margin for non-boutique retail. After overhead, making any money is good, and 3% isn't terrible when your sales number begins with a b.
Back when there were smaller stores, the margin was typically 40%. But those days are over, and why I chuckle every time I hear someone complain about the service at a Best Buy or whatever. America traded in knowledgeable electronics dealers for cheap, plastic, slave-labor constructed garbage that are a tenth of the price and last about as long. That is, if you don't break the connectors that are glued to the pcb instead of screwed to plates, as they used to be. Now those same stores employing kids are charging three hundred dollars to fix the crappy electronics they sold them in the first place.
Ah well. There is no free lunch. But there are a lot of people who aren't smart with their money. What were we talking about again?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Listen Chucky, I made that all up. I'll type real slow so you can understand: I... called... you.. Chucky... because... you... are... an... idiot.
Re:Begs the question - not so much (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Begs the question - not so much (Score:5, Insightful)
Language may change over time, but it seems these days that the new meaning is already represented by an existing expression and that the old meaning doesn't have a new or alternate expression. It's this loss of expression that drives me to correct people's writing and speaking.
The "new meaning" of "Begging the question" is already available as "Raising the question".
When you use words intelligently you'll find that your point is often much more clearly understood. Changing language in the means mentioned primarily distracts and confuses the intention of the speaker.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Bloody colonials.
Be nice to us, or we'll start our own language standard. We'll start switching "s" around with "z" and pretty soon you'll have to start calling our version "American English".
By the way, the same thing seems to be happening on your side of the pond [timesonline.co.uk].
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re-read your own post. Something about glass houses comes to mind :)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Just another attack by the liberal elite. Why do you hate America?
Unrealistic Expectation (Score:3, Informative)
If 4% growth in a mature company isn't good enough, then you need to recalibrate your expectations. The big gains in growth and stock price are just after a start-up and IPO. No business can grow at high rates forever, eventually the market for their product/service is saturated.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Every Time" - really? Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves with the absolutes shall we? Amazon's 2008 results will be published in January 2009 - so we have until then to determine your predictive accuracy. Amazon issues a post-holiday press release - has done for years. It's reported revenue increases every year in that press release that have been verified in more detail in it's an
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
4% isn't good enough.
When T-bills, municipal bonds, and FDIC insured CDs outperform your business, it's time to find a different strategy.
4% growth is not the same as return on investment. If those things you mentioned have a higher return on investment than your stock, you are right, But where would I find the GROWTH rate for CDs? How many FDIC insured CDs were sold last year? How many were sold this year? Where do you get the GROWTH rate for FDIC insured CDs?
Re:One of my favorite places... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes and No.
Damn easy, great selection, good delivery options, cheap, no crowds... brilliant.
However I'm not sure I like the new trend of having lots of items listed which they don't sell, and farming the actual selling off to smaller companies I've never heard of. And it's easy to miss the small print saying it's supplied by someone else and effectively a marketplace purchase.
Not that I have anything against the marketplace, but blurring the boundaries too much annoys me. This is especially annoying when it comes to things like SD/MemStick cards, as there has been a lot of trouble with fakes lately and I want to buy from a supplier I trust - Amazon.
All that said, it's no wonder some of the shitty high-street chains are going bankrupt. The days when you can overcharge for tat because you're the only game in town are over.
Parent
it's in the sales tax (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn easy, great selection, good delivery options, cheap, no crowds... brilliant.
You neglected one extraordinary feature that no one else has mentioned in any of these comments-- no sales tax. When it comes to high-dollar electronic purchases, I always go to Amazon or Newegg. Brick and mortars can not compete when they have to pile on a sales tax. For instance, I just bought a Nikon D90 camera with a couple of lenses. Sales tax in Austin, TX. boosted the price more than a hundred dollars over what Amazon was charging.
As the economy continues to crumble, more people will probably recognize this cost-saving opportunity and Amazon will be able to brag amount recession-resistant sales figures. Not that this article indicates they have actually made more money than in previous years.
Seth
Parent
Re:it's in the sales tax (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
of course (Score:5, Funny)
and when I mail items overseas or receive them from overseas, I never mark them as "gift" if they were actually purchases
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I find it incomprehensible that in the US, your prices don't include sales tax already. OK the tax varying state to state is less odd - after all we have different VAT rates here in Europe. But it's far less hassle to have the VAT already included - no wonder people in the US don't like tax. I won't even start on the whole thing of having to "do your taxes - again, little wonder taxes are unpopular.
Transparency in this case is not beneficial. It is not as if you can't sit down here in Ireland and work out h
Re:One of my favorite places... (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you tried to buy hdmi / dvi cable lately (and by lately I mean this was about 1.5yr ago)?
Local store price for 6' section: $35-45
Online vendor price for 6' section: Bout 7 bucks.
And now I pretty much buy everything online. It's so much better and comparing prices doesn't burn up my time or gas.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There are a few things that can make a huge difference...
First, stores, of any type, need a good location. Even when they are large chains, and can purchase the land and building outright, the property taxes are still much higher than Amazon's distribution centers. In addition, they need to build, heat and maintain a much larger number of stores/warehouses than Amazon. You can't build a single Home Depot to service a 5 state area - but Amazon can build a single warehouse, in the middle of nowhere, to ser
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They say that just to be on the safe side. Everything I order from them arrives before the *beginning* of the predicted arrival period. So if they say "estimated delivery in 2 or 3 weeks", it arrives in one. Or earlier. I've had orders arrive in a mere 2 working days (ordered sunday, shipped monday and was here wednesday morning).
I usually order from their UK department from another country in europe, but I've ordered from the US in the past. The only time an order ever arrived past their estimated delivery
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Over here in Germany shippings quite often arrives as soon as the next day. So in terms of shipping I couldn't be happier. However Amazon does still have lots of fault. For one there is their search engine, which totally sucks, spell a single character wrong and you won't find anything (i.e. Spiderman vs Spider-man). Their product catalog is also full of stuff that is either no longer available or only through third party and there is no easy way to filter that out or to see shipping cost for those third pa
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:People are Dumb (Score:5, Insightful)
Is anyone else totally disillusioned with consumers for things like this? The worldwide economy is crumbling because people didn't know how much was too much. And now, after people know that, they *keep* *buying*. Big screen TVs, _thousands_ in gift cards, other expensive purchases, when they should be starting to save up, conserve. When will people learn?
I think the key isn't "don't buy anything" but the key is "live within your means." The unfortunate thing is that, too many people don't know what their means are. They have no idea about their budget, or what they can afford, or how much they actually spend on X Y or Z each month. (Seriously, ask someone who doesn't budget how much they think they spend on eating out each month.)
Once a person sits down and figures out a good solid budget, money, surprisingly does not present as many issues because, instead of spending it willy-nilly, it's being managed.
And, as you suggested, saving (and investing, if your finances allow for it), is a definite must. Once you are saving and paying your bills then you can go and make that fun purchase.
Of course, that's boring. So what the heck am I saying? SPEND! SPEND MY PRETTIES!
Parent
Re:People are Dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
If your job is secure, an economic downturn is the time to look for deals. If you buy at maximum bubble, you're almost certainly paying too much.
For instance, I ride a Harley. (I actually ride mine, I don't just keep it under wraps in the garage and occasionally pose with it.) During the dot com bubble, Harleys were going for thousands over MSRP because there was a lot of new disposable income and it was considered by some to be a status symbol. When the dot coms detonated in 2001, there were suddenly a lot of nearly-new bikes on the market for thousands *less* than MSRP. If you were going to buy a bike, that would have been the time.
The same is pretty much true now. I'm told the local shops are crammed with 2008 models they can't move, and they aren't taking in any more on consignment. If you're in the market, why wait until prices go up?
I agree with you -- now is not the time to buy purchases you can't afford. Your first priority is to pay down debt and concentrate on the essentials. That said, we bought a widescreen TV in November. Why? Because our old one had crapped out and couldn't be fixed (we were victims of the Sony Grand Wega fiasco) and we lucked into a deal that got us a replacement at 1/4 retail (about 1/3 street) that would not be repeated. So we gritted our teeth, ate soup for a couple weeks, and paid cash. On the surface it may sound like mindless consumerism, but I saved more than $1K over what it would have cost me had I waited until the economy improved.
Look at it another way: Say the economy is going great guns, and you decide it's time to buy that Lexus. THEN the economy crashes. You're left with iffy job prospects AND a car you paid way to much for. That you can't sell.
Parent