Amazon News Roundup from January 2015
Here are some interesting news items about Amazon in January 2015 along with my comments.
In 2014, Amazon’s stock price fell 18% While Nasdaq overall was up 14%.
Nothing too scary here. However, Amazon’s insisting on growth over profits actually resulted in an interesting Q3 in 2014, which ended on September 30, 2014. In that quarter, Amazon posted a $544 million loss on revenue of $20 billion. They (Jeff Bezos in particular) just don’t care about profits as much as growth. In a strange way, that’s good news for those of us trying to grow our businesses on Amazon as well.
See the GigaOm story here which quotes the Reuters story here.
Amazon Unveils One-Hour Delivery Service
Awesome new program for NYC (one zip code in Manhattan, at least). You can now buy certain products and have them delivered by bike in less than an hour. According to the WSJ article, this program will begin for other cities next year. This is not only super cool, but continues to show innovation.
Read the WSJ article here.
Amazon’s Prices are Not Always the Lowest
This article makes this sound shocking. But it’s pretty common for stores to be known as having the best prices for some things, but making it up on other products. It reminds me of my work with Harris Teeter. They explained to me typically everything on the first page of a grocery flyer is sold at a loss, just because they know the average shopper will get other stuff if they can get them in the store. In my experience and research, Amazon buyers tend to be willing to spend much more in general. They shop at Amazon for convenience more than price.
Here’s the Recode article.
Online Business Owners Struggle with Selling on vs Competing with Amazon
So true. If you start with your own e-commerce, it’s hard to know if you should post on Amazon or if they are going to turn around and eat your lunch. It’s a lot better to start a new business on Amazon and then add your own e-commerce than the other way around.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal here.
Amazon Pulls its Diapers
Interestingly, they had problems selling their own version of diapers. They stopped after just six weeks. This is probably temporary.
Nice find by GigaOm here.
Amazon Loses its Wallet
I guess they gave up on this payment system.
See the article by The Verge here.
Amazon Starts Collecting Sales Tax in Illinois Starting Feb 1
Looks like another state is now going to require sales tax. I link to the news article below. But if you are selling via FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon), you really need to read this article at Tax Jar. By the way, if you’re not using Tax Jar, you should. Period.
Read the news article at Chicago Sun Times here.
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