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|   | Subject: Amazon struggling?
Posted Feb 1, 2012 by Pegasus ~A~ | | Post: 1
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The online retailing giant is apparently struggling: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...s-fourth-quarter-profit-slides.html
After huge increases in both internet shopping and in Amazon's own sales over Xmas, they are now reporting losses. Is it the first step on the slippery slope of over-stretching themselves? Does it feel oh-too-familiar?
I heard they were going into hard copy publishing, perhaps the capital outlay has affected their accounts.
First Borders goes under, then Amazon reports losses. How are people supposed to buy books? Libraries customarily deal with jobbers like Baker and Taylor, which hopefully would still be around. Many libraries also provide e-books, so the loss of Kindle won't doom e-books altogether.
Will independent bookstores make a comeback?
|  | Subject: Amazon struggling?
Posted Feb 1, 2012 by Xanatic
This is a reply to this Posting.
| | Post: 4
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Here I was thinking it would be a thread about female mud wrestling.
 
Maybe fewer people are reading nowadays. Obviously it's because they're off watching women mud-wrestling! 
How can Amazon be struggling? I've paid them enough money in recent months to bank-roll them single-handedly!
It came as a surprise to me. But then so did their quality of service over the 2011 Christmas period. Can't remember how many times I had to contact them over various problems with my orders.
Yet, I pay their VAT regularly on kindle
Actually, there have been doubters for almost as long as Amazon has been in business. If even half of what they said was true, Amazon would have gone under at least ten years ago. Obviously it hasn't. There may be more going on than meets the eye. Then again, maybe Amazon really is having troubles. We'll know for sure eventually.
| | Subject: Amazon struggling?
Posted Feb 3, 2012 by  ~ jwf ~
This is a reply to this Posting.
| | Post: 10
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I'm not sure what the real buzz is on Amazon
but I suspect they are reaping the wind of change
for expanding into areas beyond books and publishing.
Corporate policies about the need to grow, spurred by
greedy stock-holders, have caused many a successful
and viable business to take its eyes off their balls.
~jwf~
| | Subject: Amazon struggling?
Posted Feb 3, 2012 by sprout
This is a reply to this Posting.
| | Post: 11
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But the rate of deforestation is slowing, thankfully.
sprout
"But the rate of deforestation is slowing, thankfully." [Sprout]
I hope so.
| | Subject: Amazon struggling?
Posted Feb 3, 2012 by ~ jwf ~
This is a reply to this Posting.
| | Post: 13
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One reason for this are the rubber trees.
Rubber trees are native to the Amazon region
but were considered too difficult to manage,
harvest and ship the product from the depths
of the jungle rainforest so they were trans-
planted to southeast Asia to create the huge
plantations.
Well now the Brazilian rubber trees are being
used domestically to make condoms. A growing
industry that just keeps getting bigger and
biggerer.
Who'da thought safe sex would save the rain forests.
~jwf~
I would think that the mahogany trees would be spared, too. People in New York penthouses are not likely to lose their taste for mahogany any time soon.
Amazon sell the Kindle in all its incarnations below cost. They are trying to price all the other ereaders out of the market so that the default ereader is the Kindle. They then have life-long revenue from ebook sales through their own site. They have also ploughed most of the profits from this into new R&D for upgrades and new hardware.
I notice that Amazon are now trying to go into publishing so are trying to corner the market in paper books, ebooks and all the ancillaries associated. I assume they are hoping for a future monopoly on global book reading which will send their profits sky high in future years (they hope - doubt the Monopolies & Mergers Commission et al will agree).
"Amazon sell the Kindle in all its incarnations below cost. They are trying to price all the other ereaders out of the market so that the default ereader is the Kindle. They then have life-long revenue from ebook sales through their own site. They have also ploughed most of the profits from this into new R&D for upgrades and new hardware" [deakie]
I'm getting confused. How can you use profits that don't exist?
Amazon had huge profits beforehand from internet sales, they invested that money into the Kindle R&D and sell them at a below cost price to millions of people, which eats into their reserves.
Each of those people who bought a low cost Kindle didn't buy a Nook or Sony ereader etc so are tied to Amazon for their book purchases. Amazon make a HUGE amount of profit from ebook sales from all those people - over the lifetime of a Kindle, more than enough to pay for the losses they encurred in the production of the hardware.
Profits from the ebook sales are now being ploughed into R&D for the next generation of Kindles/upgrades/forays into publishing.
So, on paper, Amazon have made a loss this year. That doesn't mean they haven't made a huge amount of money, they've just spent more than they made 'this year'.
They are doing the age old 'speculate to accumulate'. Corner the market now for greater profit in years to come.
<How can you use profits that don't exist?>
Ask anyone who ever worked in a bank, accountants, stock exchange, futures maket or finance house...
Amazon also have an arm in data centres. They have gigantic server spaces which is rented out to others. Dropbox store all their data on Amazon servers. I think Tumblr also uses Amazon.
TRiG.
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