Amazon Sales Record

Which day? by Albinofrenchy · 2004-12-28 02:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

From what I've seen, Amazon won't say which day the record was set, or why they won't say which day the record was set. Why the secrecy?

--
"A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes." -Mahatma Gandhi

Re:Which day? by Attar81 · 2004-12-28 02:10 · Score: 5, Informative

It says Thanksgiving Weekend, so I would guess that's it that Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year.
Re:Which day? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:15 · Score: 0

1. They can use that information next year, when they spend their advertising dollars.
2. Logistics related stuff and negotiating with dealers.
Re:Which day? by jedidiah · 2004-12-28 02:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

That's the biggest shopping day for brick and mortar. If everyone is out at the malls, they are far less likely to be at home plugged into the computer.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:Which day? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:34 · Score: 0

Impossible. All my free-thinking, non-conformist friends said that nobody is supposed to buy anything on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was all over the blogosphere, people!

I find it impossible to believe that people will mindlessly conform to the wrong side. Adbusters has shown me the correct way to conform.
Re:Which day? by jellomizer · 2004-12-28 02:40 · Score: 2, Interesting
It could be Friday as well for some reasons...
1. Most people have that Friday off from work.
2. After looking at the sores they couldn't find what they wanted.
3. They found what they wanted and went online to buy it at a better price.
4. To stuffed with turkey to go out.
5. Don't like the crowds of Black Friday but still want to finish their shopping early.
6. Unable to find a parking spot and went home
7. Finish talking to friends and relatives and have a fresh memory on what they want so you buy as much as you can online then shop later.
8. Stuck at home to clean after Thanksgiving
9. Wanted to get the online stuff early before the inventory ran out.
10. No Car
--
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:Which day? by schtum · 2004-12-28 02:44 · Score: 1

Maybe this is why brick and mortar stores reported disappointing Black Friday sales. Well, Wal-Mart did, anyway. Another factor: malls close. I'll bet Amazon's sales peaked much later in the day than "real" stores. Maybe the reason they don't give a specific day (if they really don't. I haven't RTFA) is that it was a 24 hour period stretching over two days (Friday night through Saturday), which wouldn't sound as impressive.
Re:Which day? by jayhawk88 · 2004-12-28 03:00 · Score: 1

Why the secrecy?

Perhaps they don't want to give the black-hats a specific target for next year?
Re:Which day? by schtum · 2004-12-28 03:00 · Score: 1

Okay, disregard the above post as I am clearly talking out my ass. I'm putting my money on the last weekend before Christmas for Amazon's record day, and I have circumstancial evidence to prove it!

I did almost all my Christmas shopping on Amazon, and the only time I ever noticed server problems on their end was December 17th. It took me at least three tries just to log in. I remember being surprised that so many people were putting their faith in Amazon's shipping speed. I was just there for the super saver (aka free) shipping, and I'm still waiting for one package (scheduled to arrive today, actually).
Re:Which day? by jedidiah · 2004-12-28 03:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

Your best bet would be the last gauranteed shipping day before xmas. This would cover your "last minute online shoppers". 'Cause after that you don't know if your orders will get to their recipients in time and who really wants that?

It sounds like Amazon was being overly optimistic.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:Which day? by jedidiah · 2004-12-28 03:20 · Score: 1

That probably has more to do with the economy than anything else. Consumer confidence is in the crapper for all but the highest tier consumers right now. This is reflected in the total season sales numbers.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:Which day? by Plutor · 2004-12-28 03:51 · Score: 2, Informative

Actually, Black Friday is not the busiest shopping day of the year, even for Brick-and-Mortar. The two weekends before Christmas almost always push the day after Thanksgiving to fifth-busiest. See Snopes.
Re:Which day? by microTodd · 2004-12-28 03:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

Perhaps on the day last week when Harry Potter Book 6 became available for pre-order. Wouldn't that book alone perhaps count for a million or so of the 2.8 million sales? Especially since Book 5 sold 5 million copies in the first 24 hours?

--
"You cannot find out which view is the right one by science in the ordinary sense." - C.S. Lewis on Intelligent Design
Re:Which day? by msheppard · 2004-12-28 03:55 · Score: 1, Redundant

Thanksgiving Friday is NOT the busiest day of the year. It's usually hte last weekend before xmas.

M@

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Krispy Cream is people
Re:Which day? by furball · 2004-12-28 04:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

Black Friday was the busiest shopping day of the year. The recent trend has consumers shifting their shopping closer and closer to Christmas. This causes the retails a lot of worry as you can imagine. They can't really plan and respond in such a narrow time frame when 40%+ of their sales happen in such a short time period. Forecasting sales and predicting if you'll meet your Q4 sales (and annual targets) becomes a right utter bitch.
Re:Which day? by realdpk · 2004-12-28 04:27 · Score: 1

Eh, they *can* plan but they choose not to. They choose to cut corners everywhere throughout the year, hoping that some christian holiday will save them (the messiah!). It's a bunch of finger crossing and it doesn't need to be.
Re:Which day? by Keighvin · 2004-12-28 04:31 · Score: 4, Informative

Oh yeah, Friday's big, no question - but it's a far cry from the next Monday, when everyone gets back to work (access to broadband) and begins hunting online for those things which they did not get over the weekend.

That's when the trend starts, and beyond that marketing has a larger impact than predictable human behavior; so it could have been any time from then until the last week before Christmas when it begins to peter out.

I work for a significant online competitor of Amazon's and am citing personal experience from having reviewed our bandwith, order rate, and income over the same key points of the holiday season.

--
Any spoon would be too big.
Re:Which day? by DrEldarion · 2004-12-28 04:45 · Score: 1

On the Amazon affiliate boards, the general consensus is that the late part of that weekend is better than the beginning part. Typically, they say, that following Monday is their best day.
Re:Which day? by furball · 2004-12-28 05:11 · Score: 1

They can't plan. The problem is that most of the shopping happens at the last two weeks because consumers are holding out for the best bargains with the impression that they can/will get the best bargains during that period. So the retailers put out their bargains, then as it gets closer, discount some more.

For example, I shopped around for a suit with Banana Republic. Total cost: $325 for jacket, $125 for pants. I told my sister I could get a better deal. Come 12/24/2004 I picked it up for $199 for jacket, $89 for pants.

Other retailers are a bit more creative. Walmart.com builds itself around gift giving. They've done a fairly nice job creating sales bumps around Mother's Day, Father's Day, Easter, Back to School, etc. A good retailer outfit like Wal-Mart will have daily sales goals planned out at the beginning of the year and barring any unforseen events (disasters, terrorism attacks, collapse of western civilization, etc.) individual stores can practically nail those targets dead on.

Though that's an over-simplification. The useful revenue metrics is margins. It doesn't matter how much you push through the door; if it's negative margins, you're still losing money.
Re:Which day? by CanSpice · 2004-12-28 06:45 · Score: 0

Black Friday was the busiest shopping day of the year.

Have you got a source for this?
Re:Which day? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 21:17 · Score: 0

His ass, where most slashdot stats come from?
Re:Which day? by Dysan2k · 2004-12-29 03:01 · Score: 1

Don't forget also that the studies this year have already stated that people are looking in stores, but they aren't seeing what they want. Maybe what they've been looking for was online?

--
-What have you contributed lately?
Re:Which day? by macdaddy · 2004-12-29 04:22 · Score: 1

The Friday following Thanksgiving is called "Black Friday" because it's the single day that puts most brick and mortar business' books (accounting) into the black, so to speak. However the busiest day for online retailers is the Monday following Thanksgiving which they call "Black Monday." This is probably caused by the shoppers becoming frustrated with the long lines at a brick and mortar store. Or perhaps they didn't find what they were looking for and are going online to find it.

One-click by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:01 · Score: 3, Funny

Is there any way I can buy all items on said list with One Click, considering it is their novel patented original technological innovation?

Re:One-click by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:21 · Score: 1, Funny

The buyer didn't realize just what the red button did... Now the buyer is trying to figure out how to return all that sh17...

Too bad they... by Uptown+Joe · 2004-12-28 02:01 · Score: 1, Insightful

Too bad they were late on tons of Christmas stuff. Some people won't be getting those iPods until Feb 2005.

Re:Too bad they... by se7en11 · 2004-12-28 02:32 · Score: 1

Amazon.com was not the only store (online or offline) to have an iPod shortage. As of Dec. 17th MacMall was sold out and wasn't expecting some in until after Jan. 6th. But they offered free engraving on the back. Almost offset the delay.
Re:Too bad they... by tekiegreg · 2004-12-28 02:54 · Score: 1

Amazon has had the best shipment record of any other online store with me to date, items often come sooner than I expected, but I think maybe one late item that I can remember. I will trust Amazon over any online store to date to ship what I need on time.

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...in bed
Re:Too bad they... by llefler · 2004-12-28 04:08 · Score: 1

I do a great deal of shopping at Amazon, but I would never rely on them for a christmas present after Dec 1. Their system has been known to have problems and ship dates change.

Just last month I ordered a carpet cleaner that was slated to ship in 1-2 weeks. Three weeks later it was showing a deliver date of Dec 2, on Dec 9. I sent them e-mail and got a form response with a $10 coupon. No new ship date, no tracking number, it showed up 2 days later. If it had been a present, I would have been concerned that the order was screwed up.

Two years ago I ordered some Italian language software for my niece, it was supposed to ship in 24 hours. Then it went to out of stock and the ship date kept sliding. A week before Christmas it was no longer possible for it to make it on time, so I had to fight the crowds of last minute shoppers to get a replacement locally.

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It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. -- Harry Truman
Re:Too bad they... by spilich · 2004-12-28 06:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

I couldn't agree more. I placed a pretty big order of christmas presents for my family on Dec 6, and all of my items had a projected delivery date of Dec 20. When I complained on the 19th that a lot of my stuff hadn't shipped, they still told me that I'd be delivered by the 24th but tried to extort more money out of me to upgrade my shipping to priority. Finally, on the 22nd they sent me an email saying that because of problems with the supplier, they won't deliver some of my stuff till mid Jan. I understand that if the supplier runs out of stock it's not their fault, but it really pisses me off that they waited untill two days before christmas to tell me I won't be getting my stuff. I'll probably still buy from amazon, but NEVER during the christmas season again.
Re:Too bad they... by StarTux · 2004-12-28 08:15 · Score: 1

Be careful to check to see if its shipping from Amazon, or from another partner. Certainly noticed that some items seem to be from other companies (such as kitchen items).

Everything I have ordered has arrived on time, in fact its arrived earlier than I ever expected.

Wow, early adopters by Whafro · 2004-12-28 02:02 · Score: 5, Funny

SEATTLE (AP) - Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) on Monday said sales of consumer electronics surpassed book sales for the first time and was its largest sales category over the Thanksgiving weekend, launching the online retailer's busiest holiday selling season in 10 years.

So, erm, they had a bigger day back in like, 1994?

Re:Wow, early adopters by CrackedButter · 2004-12-28 02:13 · Score: 1

why is this flamebait? parent does have a point.

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Jonathanjk.com
Re:Wow, early adopters by Whafro · 2004-12-28 02:19 · Score: 1

I thank you, good sir. Your support of posters, like myself, who simply strive to find the cold, hard truth is truly noble and appreciated.
Re:Wow, early adopters by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:26 · Score: 0

They meant "in OVER 10 years". Sheesh, use your head.
Re:Wow, early adopters by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:46 · Score: 0

Yeah, kinda hard to sell things over ten years ago, when you only started business July 1995.
Re:Wow, early adopters by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:47 · Score: 0

When you see a sign that says "Quality X since Y," I bet you immediately say "Boy, they must have made shitty X in (Y-1)!"

Then you'd get modded up to 5. You are my hero.
Re:Wow, early adopters by AK+Marc · 2004-12-28 05:38 · Score: 1

"Boy, they must have made shitty X in (Y-1)!"

Of course. When you see a sign that says "286 accident free days" in a construction site, what do you think happened 287 days ago?

--
Learn to love Alaska
Re:Wow, early adopters by kaedemichi255 · 2004-12-28 07:27 · Score: 0

Mod DOWN. This person wrote an idiotic one lined response and apparently lacks the common sense to know what the article meant by 10 years. Anyone that mods original post as funny should and will get meda-moderated down!

Funny coincidence? by AndreyF · 2004-12-28 02:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

I bought 5 books on Amazon that day-- I used up my gift certificates from Christmas and ordered a textbook for next semester.

Re:Funny coincidence? by Wordsmith · 2004-12-28 02:52 · Score: 2, Funny

Man, you're living it up.
Re:Funny coincidence? by AndreyF · 2004-12-28 02:56 · Score: 1

Man, you're living it up.

Tell me about it... :) I was wondering if that may be why, though... I would have expected the peak shopping day to have been a couple of weeks ago, when people were buying presents...
Re:Funny coincidence? by OldAndSlow · 2004-12-28 04:25 · Score: 1

I like Amazon, but I (almost) never use it for technical books. I use addall to find the cheapest price. It saves me maybe a couple of hunderd dollars a year. It even finds books internationally, which are sometimes spectacularly cheaper than domestic.

No shit? by rylin · 2004-12-28 02:02 · Score: 4, Funny

What they neglected to mention was that this is because of patent pressure, they are now the only online-store in the united states.

Re:No shit? by mOoZik · 2004-12-28 02:04 · Score: 0

This is bullshit. I hope you were kidding, otherwise, you couldn't be more wrong, even if you were referring to online book stores and not stores in general.

--
A blog like any other.
Re:No shit? by the+unbeliever · 2004-12-28 02:15 · Score: 3, Interesting

Someone's evidently lost their sarcasm detector, or is relatively new to /., because Amazon tried to patent online shopping several years ago.
Re:No shit? by generic-man · 2004-12-28 02:31 · Score: 1

What Slashdot neglected to mention was that nobody in the United States gives a shit about software patents, so all the rallying cries of "boycott Amazon!" mean absolutely nothing.

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For more information, click here.
Re:No shit? by generic-man · 2004-12-28 02:37 · Score: 2, Funny

I don't believe you.

I also don't want to use Google to verify what you said. Please provide a link to validate that ridiculous claim.

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For more information, click here.
Re:No shit? by the+unbeliever · 2004-12-28 02:46 · Score: 1

Fine, you lazy bastard.

There you go. Happy now?
Re:No shit? by generic-man · 2004-12-28 02:53 · Score: 1

Thanks. How does that amount to "a patent on on-line shopping"?

I've spent thousands of dollars at Amazon, and I have never once used 1-Click shopping. I'd rather not have my credit card instantly billed for something. According to exhaustive searches I pretend to have performed, most Americans have not enabled 1-Click for their Amazon purchases.

In conclusion, I don't consider the 1-Click patent to be anything worth caring about. The end.

--
For more information, click here.
Re:No shit? by the+unbeliever · 2004-12-28 02:54 · Score: 1

The fact that they sued (among others) barnesandnoble.com for using a technology similar to theirs, which would have ended up shutting bn.com down (in all likelihood at that time, if it happened now it wouldn't matter)
Re:No shit? by generic-man · 2004-12-28 02:59 · Score: 3, Informative

The war over 1-Click is over. Amazon won. BN.com is still open. Nobody cares any more.

For a related topic, see how the League for Programming Freedom got their panties in a bunch about Apple, calling for a boycott of all Apple products. They later rescinded that boycott, except their about-face took less than a year.

I hear the rainforest is still in need of saving, if you'd like a cause celebre...

--
For more information, click here.
Re:No shit? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 04:31 · Score: 0

They patented sarcasm, too.

32 items per second? Wow! by mOoZik · 2004-12-28 02:02 · Score: 3, Interesting

I don't mean to be a KW (Karma Whore), but that is a staggering amount. Looking at it from a geek perspective, their system has to be such to be able to handle hundreds of thousands of simultaneous surfers and dozens of simultaneous buyers. They clearly have managed to scale-up their operations in such a way that does not negatively impact the operation of their site to the detriment of sales. Way to go, Jeff & Co!

--
A blog like any other.

Re:32 items per second? Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:07 · Score: 0

Actually I couldn't get any order tracking for a day on their site so it isn't as robust as it could be. I would assume the day I was having problems was their big sale day. Got some work to do....
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by CrackedButter · 2004-12-28 02:10 · Score: 2, Funny

Yes, its amazing what winME can do when given a chance.

--
Jonathanjk.com
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by jedidiah · 2004-12-28 02:25 · Score: 1

Scaling up to accomodate the window shoppers is relatively easy actually. Appservers and webservers run more like a renderfarm than anything else. They all share very little state that changes infrequently. Even if stock levels are all dynamic and updated in realtime, the incoming network will give out before any of the server apps do (web, app, db).

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by flabbergasted · 2004-12-28 02:44 · Score: 1

Not only that, both of my parents received their gifts before Amazon sent out the email notice that the items had been shipped. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for a book I ordered in October...
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:46 · Score: 5, Interesting

I'll let you in on a little secret - Amazon.com's codebase was C (now most likely migrated to C++, to take advanatge of things lik OOP among other reasons). It consisted of a gazillion modules which compiled to give you ONE BINARY, called obidos - check out the URL then you'll see what I'm saying. This one binary is then tied to Apache, and then fed out to their 500+ webservers. But the beauty of it is there redundancy measures. At any given time there are 3 copies the binary, a, b & c. a = The latest code. b = yesterday's stable build. c = another stable build. In case there's a bug in some build, they simply have to flip the switch to get an up and running site. It was great, but the part that's a BITCH is developing this stuff. Imagine having to re-compile all of Amazon, just to FIX A BLASTED TYPO. Posting anonymously for obvious reasons...
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by rcamera · 2004-12-28 03:55 · Score: 1

why recompile all of amazon for a typo? hopefully, the type is only in 1 '.c' file, which would translate to one '.o' file. fix the one '.c' file and recompile. only 1 '.o' should be rewritten. then all of amazon is relinked with the new '.o'. of course, if the type is in a header, multiple '.c' files could be recompiled.

--
Wave upon wave of demented avengers March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by ZorinLynx · 2004-12-28 04:14 · Score: 1

I suppose one advantage to this method is utter speed. Compiled code blows the socks off interpreted code in almost all situations.

Unfortunately, like you said, it's a major pain in the ass to maintain...

-Z
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by Doctor+Crumb · 2004-12-28 04:43 · Score: 1

32 orders per second (each of which takes at least 2 or 3 page loads), plus many millions of "window shoppers" adds up to a hell of a lot of pages. Sharing state actually would speed things up, as more could be cached.

The sheer amount of data that amazon is pushing around is probably pushing everything to the absolute limit, not just the network.
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 04:47 · Score: 3, Interesting

Here's another secret: Amazon is mostly migrated to a better system, called Gurupa (any page with 'gp/' in it), where thigns are actually modular and more maintainable. Obidos will eventually be removed. The redundancy measures are completely different now too.

(yeah, I know, not actually a secret).
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by gwjgwj · 2004-12-28 04:47 · Score: 1

Imagine having to re-compile all of Amazon, just to FIX A BLASTED TYPO.
Only recompile one module and relink. Much less work.
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 05:38 · Score: 0

I hope you're joking. MySQL couldn't possibly stand up to the load of amazon.com.
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by limbostar · 2004-12-28 06:00 · Score: 1

Except obidos is somewhere around 600 MB of compiled code. This is not a joke -- the machine code with all debugging information and symbols stripped is 600+ MB large.

Compiling it takes upwards of five minutes just to wind through the recursive makefiles, and linking it takes upwards of half an hour on most developer machines. The development cycle was quite painful when I worked there, leading to all sorts of workarounds that introduced more issues than they solved.

--
this is a sig.
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by ovit · 2004-12-28 07:03 · Score: 0

So, umm, can I become CTO at Amazon now because I know how Makefile's work?

Off topic, BUT...

I should invent a PHP to C++ converter app.

td

--
hard core geek-ware
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by nsuccorso · 2004-12-28 08:10 · Score: 2, Funny

As far as the US Patent Office is concerned, you just did. Now it's just a matter of paperwork...
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 08:13 · Score: 0

And how big of a memory footprint does that obidos have for each user that connects? Maybe around 50MB or so. So figure only about 20 users per box (1G of ram). That's a lot of webservers needed.
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 10:31 · Score: 0

shouldn't you be posting anonymously?
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by adpowers · 2004-12-28 12:22 · Score: 1

I went to a talk by some engineers at Amazon a few months ago. I believe they mentioned one reason they started moving away from obidos is because they were approaching the limit of machines that could compile it (not enough memory). Amazon has gone through a lot of different code revisions, and it all sounded very impressive.

IIRC, the system they have now allows engineers to write code in whatever language they want. Also, I think they mentioned they have a system where you write what your program want to do in XML and one of their systems will compile it in a number of different languages (for interfacing with the rest of the system or whatever).

Take this with a grain of salt, though, since I forgot to take notes. I don't remember any of the names, except obidos (sounds like the planet from Stargate).

Andrew
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 14:40 · Score: 0

Gurupa is a fiasco.

Any multicast storms lately?
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 15:33 · Score: 0

Whats wrong with you man - Gurupa sux. AMZN needs to go Java/J2EE all the way, for most except the most speed critical tasks, which can always be coded in C/C++... Get rid of the damn baggage it carries from legacy code.
Re:32 items per second? Wow! by lostguy · 2004-12-31 17:43 · Score: 1

That's fine for a developer, but you need to do a clean build before pushing to production.

Lucky for them by jstrain · 2004-12-28 02:03 · Score: 1, Funny

Lucky for them, they have the patent on the idea of a web based shopping cart. That would have been a costly day in royalties...

you may be shopaholic by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:04 · Score: 0

with these kind of numbers, Amazon should celebrate Buy Nothing Day Once every week.

Re:you may be shopaholic by NaruVonWilkins · 2004-12-28 07:34 · Score: 1

Mod parent up. Rampant consumerism is a valid point to make when looking at this.

Profitability? by jacobcaz · 2004-12-28 02:06 · Score: 4, Interesting

I wonder what the profit on those 2.8 million items was? It would be interesting to know if it was just a huge pile of loss leaders or bigger ticket items (which might shed some interesting light on the economy and holiday season in general).

I'm still hearing conflicting reports on the holiday season overall - it was great, it was terrible, it was tepid... I'm still not sure how things went down; I know this year my wife and I probably spent a little less than last year despite our earning over 40% more than last year.

This is great news...maybe. I would just like more context.

Re:Profitability? by garcia · 2004-12-28 02:29 · Score: 2, Informative

I'm still hearing conflicting reports on the holiday season overall - it was great, it was terrible, it was tepid... I'm still not sure how things went down; I know this year my wife and I probably spent a little less than last year despite our earning over 40% more than last year.

I'll tell you how it went for me... Fucking incredible. We basically bought DVDs (used mostly) and candy. After Christmas (yesterday) we did our most shopping.

I went to Old Navy armed with holiday gift cards. They were having 75% off sales. I got a fleece, a hooded sweatshirt, a nice sweater, a winter hat, two shirts for the fiance, and a scarf for $50. The sweater alone would have been $65 at AF or AE.

We then went and raided Half Price Books during their 20% off sale. We picked up two DVDs, seven books, and two magazines for $25. If you have one of these in your area I really suggest at least visiting once. Head right for the back and clear out their $1 clearance racks (there are some pics on my mobile pics from yesterday if you're interested ;))

We have already decided that we are not going to be doing any clothing shopping prior to Christmas next year. Why bother when I can save 75% afterwards?
Re:Profitability? by slapout · 2004-12-28 03:26 · Score: 1

So there's a store called Half Price Books that's selling books for 20% off? :-)

--
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Re:Profitability? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 03:36 · Score: 0

Well, I'm glad your Half Price Books shopping experience went well, but I for one, will never shop there again.

(Speaking as an ex-employee)

Management is almost always piss-poor and unsympathetic. Corporate and District level management will almost always back low-level management in the event of a customer complaint.

The reason your books and DVD's were so cheap is that HPB makes a ton of money by NOT paying what a lot of books are worth when they buy used stuff. Employees aren't trained to buy books extensively enough, which means a lot of high dollar books come in and are overlooked. I know of one instance of a 400-500 dollar advanced reader of a lemony snicket book being bought from a customer for less than a dollar. When the error was discovered, the book was priced at 450 dollars. (The customer was never notified.) This sort of thing happens every day.

Got comics are anything rare to sell? You better hope that the one person who knows comics and/or rare items is buying books at the time. Otherwise, the person who is buying your priceless collection will "guess" at a price.

Any employee who happens to care about working at the store enough to complain about management or the like, isn't likely to be an employee for long.

Don't buy into the feel good facade they spout in the press, as an ex-employee, I'm well aware of the drama and resentment a lot of employees have for the store. (Which is slowly becoming more and more corporate.

Save your christmas money or spend it in a store that doesn't rip it's customers off.
Re:Profitability? by garcia · 2004-12-28 03:46 · Score: 1

Save your christmas money or spend it in a store that doesn't rip it's customers off.

I don't care how Barnes and Noble gets their books. I certainly don't give a shit if some moron sold a book worth $450 to a store for $1. That's not my problem and it certainly isn't HPB's either. That's like going to a garage sale and buying a rare book for a .25 b/c the seller didn't know any better. I consider it "dumb luck" or a "good deal".

Don't buy into the feel good facade they spout in the press, as an ex-employee, I'm well aware of the drama and resentment a lot of employees have for the store. (Which is slowly becoming more and more corporate.

Of course it is corporate. They have multiple stores in multiple states. They aren't a local chain and you shouldn't think that they should act like they are. Otherwise they are nothing more than the facade you claim the media created for them.

I suggested going straight for the $1 clearance racks and buying those books. I have never received a book that was in poor shape, was unreadable, or was worth whining about.

If I had a more local used book store that was as clean and full of stuff I'm interested in as HPB I'd shop there but unfortunately where I live I don't. I'd have to drive 25+ miles downtown to do so. Personally, it's not worth it.

YMMV.
Re:Profitability? by archen · 2004-12-28 03:55 · Score: 1

Actually I'm thinking that the profit was probably okay. More and more I'm finding that Amazon is just a front end for a bunch of other stores. That means they don't have to keep things in stock, they just cut off a margin for themselves and let another store sell you the stuff.

That's one reason I've been ordering less from Amazon. You buy 3 things and you get nailed 3 times for shipping.
Re:Profitability? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 04:04 · Score: 0

Being ignorant doesn't make a person a moron. If I bring my books to sell to a legitimate company, I expect the person who is buying them to be knowledgable and fair. Half Price Books isn't "accidentally" paying too little for books, and then selling them for a comparable price to what they paid; they are "accidentally" buying books for a dollar and then selling them for a huge profit. (This isn't to say that the reverse doesn't occasionally happen as well.)

All of this could be avoided with proper training.

Again, I never said they weren't a corporation. However, when you interview with Half Price Books, they will tell you that they pride themselves on being a corporation that "isn't" a corporation, and that they operate differently than "other stores." I never saw this statement as true, after almost two years of employment. The press isn't creating the myth, Half Price Books is selling it, and the press loves a rags to riches story.

The trouble is, Half Price Books as a huge conglomeration isn't handling it's growth very well.

I'm glad you've never been cheated by them, but that doesn't mean you won't ever be, or that other people never are. We get a lot of older widowers selling books that they would probably dearly love to keep... and employees often don't take the time to assess the actual value of the books, which means a lot of older widowers are taken advantage of.
Re:Profitability? by megarich · 2004-12-28 04:21 · Score: 1

well it depends on which corporation you ask. and keep in mind to if a place makes a penny less than what they did the year before "oooo my were having a terrible terrible sales season! the economy is in a downward spiral, RUN FOR THE HILLS..blah blah blah"
Re:Profitability? by garcia · 2004-12-28 04:23 · Score: 1

We get a lot of older widowers selling books that they would probably dearly love to keep... and employees often don't take the time to assess the actual value of the books, which means a lot of older widowers are taken advantage of.

Apparently you've never had a collection assessed by a "reputable" appraiser either. After my grandmother passed away and my grandfather became incapacitated we had their valuables assessed by four different appraisers. Three of the four told us they would give us $500 or less for the entire lot (actual value after sorting and selling individually was nearly $12k and we didn't even try that hard).

So if you think that HPB is the only one that isn't taking the time to properly assess stuff you're wrong.
Re:Profitability? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 04:27 · Score: 0

The sweater alone would have been $65 at AF or AE.

Yes, but a more expensive one also would have been made of quality wool instead of a vulgar poly blend. The nicer sweater would have also lasted 5-10 years instead of 1, and if you are buying normal clothing, still been in style in that amount of time. You also would have looked better in the nicer sweater, as quality gives off a certain aura to whomever wears it. But no, you went the cheap instant gratification route, like so many Americans today, and now you'll just look like another doofus until next year, when you have to go buy the same crappy sweater made out of the same crappy material in the same crappy style at the same crappy store again. Good job on that one bud. Oh yes, she's not "the finance" she's "my fiance" when you write or say the phrase. The former makes you sound like you were born in KY or AK. Assuming you weren't, you should really switch to the latter form.
Re:Profitability? by iMaple · 2004-12-28 04:59 · Score: 1

I guess u are joking but anyway, for the un initiated its 20% off the half price , not bad eh ??
Re:Profitability? by ovit · 2004-12-28 07:08 · Score: 0

asshole

--
hard core geek-ware
Re:Profitability? by zilarik_z · 2004-12-28 07:15 · Score: 1

It's a good question to ask, considering Amazon started up in 1996 and didn't turn a net profit until 4th quarter 2001. ;)
Re:Profitability? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 10:04 · Score: 0

KY or AK? They speak the same way in Kentucky and Alaska now?! That's pretty impressive.
Re:Profitability? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 10:13 · Score: 0

I agree with your argument, higher priced things made of better materials often do last far longer than cheaply made ones. But that's not the isue here. A sweeping generalization perhaps, but the vast majority of people buying clothes from AF or AE won't even be wearing that sweater next winter, let alone 5-10 winters down the road. And it has nothing to do with the durability of the item, it's all about the current fashion trends. At least at every AE/AF/Gap store I've ever been in has been completely dominated by fashion critical, groupthink minded teens who won't wear anything that hasn't been showcased in the latest issue of 17 or Cosmo (or whatever they read these days), or featured on some WB show.
Re:Profitability? by MightyMartian · 2004-12-28 10:51 · Score: 1

> So there's a store called Half Price Books that's selling books for 20% off? :-)

Not as bad as an old (and now long-gone) video store in my town of 13000 called 24 Hour Video, which couldn't make enough money being open 24 hours a day, so started closing from 10pm until 10am, and renamed itself... wait for it... "24 Video".

--
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.

Oracle by DogDude · 2004-12-28 02:06 · Score: 5, Informative

I'd like to point out that Amazon DOES NOT use MySQL before the MySQL kiddies say "see, it can scale!"

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I don't respond to AC's.

Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:12 · Score: 0

Is it known what technology/scripting language they use? JSP? mod_perl? PHP? Other?
Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:12 · Score: 0

Right - probably couldn't slashdot Amazon even if we wanted to.
Re:Oracle by suso · 2004-12-28 02:13 · Score: 1

You're right, if they had been using MySQL, it would have been 64 items per second. ;-)

Seriously though, wasn't MySQL developed for a Sweedish warehouse company that had to handle like 50,000,000 items?
Re:Oracle by Gopal.V · 2004-12-28 02:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

That is because Companies don't change technolgies on the basis of Merit.

The real story behind Repeat Customers is Vendor Lockins (not to mention "Nobody got fired for buying Oracle" FUD)...

And my Bank's internet banking still uses COBOL and flat file records...

--
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:19 · Score: 0

you are right, but it's not oracle.

it's MSSQL 6.0 with IIS 4.0 running on windows NT 4.0

because MSSQL is much better than Oracle. at leasthat is what our company MS represenative says.
Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:38 · Score: 0

I hope you're joking... Amazon has been running Apache for a while now.
Re:Oracle by rand.srand() · 2004-12-28 02:41 · Score: 1

Haberdash! Just to clear the records, Woolworths apothecary set the record using tried-and-true Difference Engine. What's for, you juveniles using your fangled Dalton mechanical calculators!

Some things never change.
Re:Oracle by TopShelf · 2004-12-28 02:45 · Score: 1

That is because Companies don't change technolgies on the basis of Merit.

And why should they? The "merit" must be so strong that it justifies a total rework of a company's systems architecture, and be solid enough to not require another such rework a few years down the road when GeeWhiz Technology 2.0 comes out. For many companies, their basic systems (many even Cobol based - the horror!) work just fine and it doesn't make sense to reinvent the wheel just because you do it in the current hot language...

--
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Re:Oracle by marvin2k · 2004-12-28 02:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

Are you kidding me? You do not actually suggesting using MySQL for this kind of task on that scale, do you? How are you going to do hot backups? Lock the whole db for the duration of this backup? This might be sufficient for your "me and my family" homepage but it's certainly impossible for Amazon. Hell they have just introduced Views and "Initial support for rudimentary triggers". I use MySQL exclusively and like it but even I know that it isn't suitable for the really big stuff...
Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:53 · Score: 0

The webserver runs a C/C++ binary which goes by the catchall name "obidos". The pages are standard HTML, with some perl scripting, and 'cat-subst' macros (these 'cat-subst' macros look similar to perl.). These macros are basically C functions embedded into the HTML, and called at runtime (not quite cgi, if that's your next guess..). The back end consists of Oracle, and only oracle (but bolstered with flat files, and XML where possible). Development takes place on red-hat linux. Amazon makes extensive use of Wiki, LXR and Tinderbox for development. Of course, even they are not free of Windows, which is what they use for the PHB side of things...
Re:Oracle by HeghmoH · 2004-12-28 03:24 · Score: 2, Funny

Yeah, MySQL certainly handles high-traffic web sites well. I would have replied sooner, but slashdot kept giving me those HTTP 500 errors....

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Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 03:48 · Score: 0

Course he's joking. Seriously, NT4? That would fall over dead if Amazon were 1/10 the size it is now.
Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 05:43 · Score: 0

You're right, if they had been using MySQL, it would have been 64 items per second. ;-)
Until you enabled transactions which you'll want on something like Amazon.
Re:Oracle by beebware · 2004-12-28 05:59 · Score: 2, Insightful

One way round I've thought of is have a minimum of two MySQL DB servers. One being the "Master" and the other the Slave via replication. When backup time comes around, stop the replication, make a backup of the Slave DB then restart the replication (the Slave will then catchup to the Master).
Of course, in a "industrial" setting, you'll have multiple Slave servers to help spread the load and keep everything on RAID systems with extensive MySQL logging as well...
Re:Oracle by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 10:07 · Score: 0

No company changes technologies constantly. That would cost even more than maintaining legacy systems.

You know all those "white papers" that people on Slashdot poo-pooh as bullshit? Some of them are actually useful in determining whether or not to adopt new technologies.
Re:Oracle by teslatug · 2004-12-28 12:19 · Score: 1

Fashcopy/Snapshot at the SAN level?
Re:Oracle by flosofl · 2004-12-28 12:33 · Score: 1

Haberdash!

Did you mean balderdash? Haberdash is a verb meaning to deal in small wares.

--
"This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence" - Vyvyan "The Young Ones"
Re:Oracle by lavaface · 2004-12-28 14:27 · Score: 1

Doesn't slashdot use mysql?

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harmonious design
Re:Oracle by DogDude · 2004-12-29 08:55 · Score: 1

It does. Slashdot has a tiny fraction of the traffic of something like Amazon, a much, much simpler database, isn't mission critical, and goes down more than a $20 whore in Vegas. So, I'm not sure what your point would be...

--
I don't respond to AC's.

iPods lead electronics sales by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

"The top selling electronics products were the Apple iPods and a Phillips DVD player. "

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/12/27/tech/m ai n663270.shtml

Way to go Apple! Flash iPod is coming!

Darn there goes my non-disclosure agreeemnt, oh well I felt like getting sued anyway. :)

Amazon will rule the world. by AndreyF · 2004-12-28 02:08 · Score: 3, Interesting

Not only that, most of the pages on the site are either encrypted or customized (via datamining), or both. I wonder what kind of servers they're running?

Re:Amazon will rule the world. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:16 · Score: 0

A large farm on linux servers. They refer to it at "horiztontal scaling".
Re:Amazon will rule the world. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:49 · Score: 3, Interesting

The customization takes place using "macros" embedded in the HTML/XML of their web pages. These macros are actually C functions, which are called at runtime on the webserver - which runs a single binary called obidos.
Re:Amazon will rule the world. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 03:09 · Score: 1, Interesting

That's actually not so true anymore- there new system, gurupta (which you're on when you see "gp" in your path) is taking over from obidos. It's a better architected system.

For comparison? by suso · 2004-12-28 02:10 · Score: 4, Interesting

Does anyone have any statistics on how many items say, a single retail store (like Wal-mart) sells in a single day? How about all of the stores in a chain. Data like that would help put things in perspective.

Re:For comparison? by Attar81 · 2004-12-28 02:13 · Score: 1

How about data for all Wal-mart stores for a single day? I think that would be a true comparison (meaning countrywide to countrywide sales).
Re:For comparison? by jacobcaz · 2004-12-28 02:18 · Score: 4, Informative
- Does anyone have any statistics on how many items say, a single retail store (like Wal-mart) sells in a single day? How about all of the stores in a chain. Data like that would help put things in perspective.
Well, Wal-Mart has about 3500 stores (give or take a few) and 2.8 million items over 3500 stores is only 800 items per store. A Super Wal-Mart could do this in a few hours per store.
I would bet that what Wal-Mart does on an average day makes this look like peanuts in comparison. Not to take anything away from Amazon's one-day record, but it's not really a drop in the bucket for Wal-Mart. Remember, they have annual revenues of ~$250 Billion-with-a-B. That's an average daily reveue of $680,000,000.
Re:For comparison? by ViolentGreen · 2004-12-28 02:31 · Score: 1

I don't really think that it's a fair comparison. When people shop at Walmart (especially for Christmas) they tend to buy a whole lot of stuff. When most people (or from my experience at least) shop online, they purchase one or two items at a time and from different stores at that. It is much easier to stroll down every isle in walmart and look at every product than it is to see all of amazon's offerings.

--
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
Re:For comparison? by victor_the_cleaner · 2004-12-28 03:47 · Score: 1

Ever been to a Super Wal-Mart during a peak time? I would say they could sell 800 items in less than 1 hour.

Speaking of comparisons, I have a friend that works for the US Postal Service. His favorite stat:

'Take the total number of packages FedEx moves in a year, we move that in a day!'
Re:For comparison? by megarich · 2004-12-28 04:27 · Score: 1

I would like more statistics too. I would like to see how your normal retail chains, such as walmart, bestbuy do. And I like to know the successful delivery rates on all those products that amazon sells. I have a coworker who ordered 3 dvds from amazon over a month ago(around that black friday time period) and its yet to be delivered to his door.

Though as far as for online selling goes, I think its impressive. I would like to see online statisitics too from other sites but I don't think any other online place can come close to that.
Re:For comparison? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 15:40 · Score: 0

- Walmart also has to deal with customer/employee theft
- It has huge operational overhead since its a brick-mortar business
- They have to worry about unions in their midst constantly
- A lot of their products just suck donkey dick
- You don't have the option of buying used items like on Amazon
- You have to go to the store to get it

I could name you a few billion other reasons why I'd rather shop at Amazon.com. Besides Jeff Bezos is like a freaking genius - nothing of importance ever passed him by. He listens to his customers as well as his employees. This is why Amazon will become like Walmart. Ok, maybe not kill it (although I wish it did), but at least size up to it in the future. It's just too damn convenient.
Re:For comparison? by SmittyTheBold · 2004-12-28 19:22 · Score: 1

Much less time than a few hours. Don't forget that the supercenters sell groceries; I can easily purchase over 100 items at a time.

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± 29 dB

Good point... by Uptown+Joe · 2004-12-28 02:11 · Score: 0

Are they the next WalMart... Slamming their vendors into submission by threatening to stop buying product and demanding lower and lower prices until there is no profit (no jobs, closed plants) I guess that only China and Taiwan are left smiling.

Re:Good point... by bigjnsa500 · 2004-12-28 02:55 · Score: 1

Have you been inside of a Walmart? The majority of their products ARE made in 3rd world countries. The largest is Indonesia and China. Its getting harder and harder to find anything Made in the USA.

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This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
Re:Good point... by iMaple · 2004-12-28 05:02 · Score: 1

Have you been inside of a Walmart? The majority of their products ARE made in 3rd world countries. The largest is Indonesia and China. Its getting harder and harder to find anything Made in the USA.

Well that applies to most shops now. I did some shopping from Gap and every single item was made outside the USA

What is it about that site... by abirdman · 2004-12-28 02:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

What is it about the iWon.com site that makes me feel all slimy and dirty? Is it the fact that they're major purveyors of spam? Or could it be all the "popup blocker" ads they run to fund their site, duping the rubes into thinking there's a downloadable software solution to the problem that they and their ilk are doing everything to promote--the indiscriminate installation of spyware, malware, and popups.

It's mildly interesting that Amazon is breaking sales records, but I don't believe a word from that awful site... and as another poster already mentioned-- there's damn little content in the article.

--
Everything I've ever learned the hard way was based on a statistically invalid sample.

Re:What is it about that site... by ThatsNotFunny · 2004-12-28 02:47 · Score: 1

There *is* a downloadable software solution to popups. It's called Firefox. You must not get the New York Times... ;)

--
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
Re:What is it about that site... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 03:05 · Score: 0

http://www.google.com/search?q=iwon+spyware

even symantec list them, maybe there are some interesting articles on gator's site while we are at it

I'll bet... by Chess_the_cat · 2004-12-28 02:12 · Score: 1, Interesting

...there are individual Wal-Marts that sell more than 2.8 million units per day.

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Support the First Amendment. Read at -1

Re:I'll bet... by Haydn+Fenton · 2004-12-28 02:20 · Score: 4, Informative

As the article says, 32 items per second were sold on average during the day. So that would mean a store with, say, 16 tills, would all need to be processing more than two items per second every second.. I find that a little hard to believe.
Re:I'll bet... by gordo3000 · 2004-12-28 02:24 · Score: 0

hmmmm.... I know selling 20 or 30 different things at a wal - mart is much easier. 10 of those things might fit into one pocket. But even if on average a person at wal mart only got 20 things, I couldn't imagine a busy day where they sell millions of units. Even in my area's walmart in the middle of nowhere(so it is the center of shopping and life), there might be 200 people waiting in line on the busy days of the year. Well, lets say they can clear that out in about 20 minutes, and we refresh that many people for 12 hours, that means we have

36*200 = 7200

lets me generous and say 40 items per person(that is probably over board, I get in line with 2 or 3 things usually)

7200 * 40 = 288,000?
so I guess 14 or so wal marts like mine could do that many sales but I highly doubt my wal mart even see's numbers like that. If you took out things people don't buy or can't buy online due to restrictions(food, single pieces of candy) I bet those numbers really fall.
Re:I'll bet... by jedidiah · 2004-12-28 02:28 · Score: 1

I can't speak for Walmart or Amazon. However, an online store might easily be equivalent to one of the more successful brick and mortar outlets if you've got a company that does both (think JCPenny).

Most people still just go to the mall.

--
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Re:I'll bet... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:46 · Score: 0

At my walmart i'm lucky to get them to process two items per minute.
Re:I'll bet... by utexaspunk · 2004-12-28 02:55 · Score: 4, Funny

Score:-1, Bad at math
Re:I'll bet... by kaleco · 2004-12-28 03:00 · Score: 1

Each sale in Walmart is worth less. They don't sell 2.8M DVDs per day. I agree, however, that Walmart is on a completely different scale to Amazon.

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Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
Re:I'll bet... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 07:32 · Score: 0

I'm not sure how many units, but I do know that a banner average day for a SINGLE Wal-mart store is just over $1M. So on a single Wal-mart store vs. Amazon, Amazon might win, but on a National or Global Scale, Wal-mart clearly (and obviously) has the edge.

Comparison with Brick and Mortar stores? by jrifkin · 2004-12-28 02:16 · Score: 1

How does that compare with the performance of brick and mortar stores? How items does WalMart sell
in one day across all their stores?

Re:Comparison with Brick and Mortar stores? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:46 · Score: 0

How items does WalMart sell in one day across all their stores?
What the hell are you trying to say?

Too bad there software was broken half the time by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:17 · Score: 0

Well it's easy to have a great season when your wishlists are broken. Coupled with a crack team of customer support agents who don't read your email until you've resent it four times, I'd say that Amazon.com has managed in one year to gain a massive amount of business and lose it again.

but, but, what about P2P? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:17 · Score: 1, Insightful

sales of consumer electronics surpassed book sales for the first time and was its largest sales category... The retailer added that customers bought more than 1 million items from its music category during each of two back-to-back weeks this month.

wait wait! but, but, I thought P2P would kill both these markets...

good by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

Good for them. I am not located in the US and I have bought from Amazon for years.

It is the only store that I can buy from without getting into problems with the CC validation using an international credit card not from the US but from a *"third-world country"*.

Re:good by lantran · 2004-12-28 06:07 · Score: 1

i am just curious. how do you think they are doing their credit card processing (authorization and capture)? what processor can give them that level of service?
Re:good by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 10:55 · Score: 0

Why is it that other stores in the US do not take *foreign* VISA or other CC's. An approval is an approval - right? I'm not talking things like laptops, but $100 or less purchases.

Amazon still sucks bady in other depts- some good are not orderable outside the US, presumably some lame territory shit. But you can't determine this till checkout time, when international postage does not show. bad bad bad.

And when you do find a good outlet, with what you want, they sour things by insisting on UPS or the like, and not offering USPS prepaid boxes.

Oversea's buyers want USPS, because duties/import taxes are often waived on small stuff - but you always get slugged with UPS and the like.

OneDay(tm) Shopping by SuperBanana · 2004-12-28 02:19 · Score: 5, Funny

From what I've seen, Amazon won't say which day the record was set, or why they won't say which day the record was set. Why the secrecy?

OneDay shopping. You don't tell anyone about something you're patenting until AFTER you patent it! Jeez, pay attention.

Meanwhile, let's get some prior art going, people! I've got Monday.

--
Please help metamoderate.

2.8 Million, at 32 Items per second by Mean_Nishka · 2004-12-28 02:20 · Score: 5, Funny

And not a dime of profit :).

--
www.lonseidman.com

How does this compare to retail giants? by Luscious868 · 2004-12-28 02:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

I wonder how this compares to the total sales of bricks and mortar retail giants like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. Does anybody have any idea?

Re:How does this compare to retail giants? by MtViewGuy · 2004-12-28 04:21 · Score: 1

I've been reading online news stories about how retail sales this Christmas season has been disappointing.

However, two things are skewing retail sales reports lower:

1. Record-breaking sales of gift cards and certificates. Because gift cards and certificates aren't recorded as a retail sale until they are redeemed, this means we need to look at retail sales in January and February 2005 to determine to true level of retail sales this Christmas season.

2. Record-breaking sales of items through online retailers and through eBay auctions. Again, most reports of retail sales don't include online retailers and eBay transactions.

How to calculate rough per store sales by sjbe · 2004-12-28 02:30 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm too lazy to dig through the reports but you can calculate a rough per-store sales number from the financial reports of any of the big retailers. Get a copy of their income statement and the number at the top will be Revenue. (might be called Sales or something else but it's the same number) Dig through a copy of their annual report to find the number of stores the firm has and divide revenue by the number of stores and then divide that by 360 (allowing for holidays) which should give you a rough per-day sales number

If you want to be a little more sophisticated, you can get last year's report and find the number of stores and revenue figures for the previous year. This lets you average the current and previous year figures which will give a slightly better estimate. You also should look through the financial statements for non-retail revenues and subtract those from your starting revenue figures. For example if the company has a financing arm, you might want to back those numbers out before starting. Also you need to be careful with companies like WalMart or Dayton-Hudson (Target) or May Company (Famous Barr, Lord & Taylor) since they actually own several different types of stores. You may or may not be able to isolate the number for a given type of store. Please remember however that this number does not represent what any given store is doing, just what the average store within the firm is selling.

Re:How to calculate rough per store sales by LetterJ · 2004-12-28 02:45 · Score: 2, Informative

"Dayton-Hudson (Target)"

Not to nitpick, but you may want to update your records. Dayton-Hudson is now just "Target Corporation" and they sold off the Daytons/Marshall Fields chain to May Company. They are also getting rid of the Mervyn's chain as well.

--

The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things

Lack of sales by knightrdr · 2004-12-28 02:31 · Score: 1

It has been widely reported that luxury items sold very well this year, compared to stores such as Walmart. I was amazed to see what a poor selection Walmart had this year, compared to the same time period last year. Not only that, but their prices were higher than I was willing to pay for Walmart goods.

Now let's compare that to Amazon.com. You can order something and have it delivered to your family by Amazon. That saves you from sitting in line at the post office. Even during the non-holiday time of year my local post office has constant 20-30 minute lines.

Personally I am an internet bargain hunter. I look for the best bang for the buck, from a store that my friends and I have previous experience with. I also look at the return policy and shipping costs. I've sent many gifts from Newegg, for example, and have never had a problem. From what I've been told by friends and coworkers in the past, they have very good RMA policies.

CNN by shamowfski · 2004-12-28 02:35 · Score: 2, Informative

Similar story has been running on CNN for a couple days now.

For those that care about politics... by revscat · 2004-12-28 02:38 · Score: 1, Offtopic

If you care: Amazon gives over 60% of its political donations to Republicans...

Re:For those that care about politics... by AndreyF · 2004-12-28 03:00 · Score: 1

I don't think 60% is that much, speaking statistically... I'm pretty much talking out of my ass, though.
Re:For those that care about politics... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 04:07 · Score: 0

According to http://www.choosetheblue.com/, it was more like 40%.
Re:For those that care about politics... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 04:32 · Score: 0

What's even worse was that they gave the other 40% to Democrats. Ugh.

Sincerely,
michael
Card-Carrying Communist Propagandist (CCCP Forever!)
Re:For those that care about politics... by WebCowboy · 2004-12-28 10:18 · Score: 1

If you care: [...]

Couldn't give a rat's a$$ really, but thanks for playing.

Wish I had some -1 (off topic) mod points to burn though...
Re:For those that care about politics... by revscat · 2004-12-28 10:55 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Hm. You don't care, but bother to reply, and say you'd mod it off topic.
Sounds like you care quiet a lot, actually.

Not just books by moterizer · 2004-12-28 02:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

Nightly News reported that (for the first time) electronic items outsold books.

How many got their items on time though? by Warlock7 · 2004-12-28 02:39 · Score: 2, Interesting

It seems that Amazon did great business this holiday season, but they also seem to have miseed some delivery dates.

So, business is good, but some didn't get their gifts in time for the holidays. This kind of begs the question as to what the percentage of on-time deliveries were. Was this a worldwide issue or was it mainly in the UK only?

Re:How many got their items on time though? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:46 · Score: 0

I live in the UK, and despite ordering on the 16th and all items being "usually dispatched within 24 hours.", they haven't arrived yet.
Re:How many got their items on time though? by Basilius · 2004-12-28 03:21 · Score: 1

May not have been entirely their fault:

My mother simultaneously sent separate Christmas cards to myself, my wife, and my daughter.

One arrived on Tuesday, one on Wednesday, and the last on Friday. All the week before Christmas.

Sending things through the mail during the Christmas season is like watching pachinko balls. You never really know how long it's going to take to get to it's (hopefully correct) destination.
Re:How many got their items on time though? by aslate · 2004-12-28 03:42 · Score: 1

But then i live in the UK, ordered a calendar with a week long dispatch wait, predicted to arrive on the 30th December, and i got it on the 23rd December, about 5 days after the order was placed and way before it was predicted to even be dispatched.
Re:How many got their items on time though? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 05:32 · Score: 0

One of the largest courier companies ceased trading this month, so I suspect it was a one-off problem that can't be adequately compensated for by online retailers ahead of time.
Re:How many got their items on time though? by kaedemichi255 · 2004-12-28 07:46 · Score: 1

If you RTFPR (press release) it says more than 99% of customers got their orders on time. Of course, nothing is perfect, and when you depend on UPS/FedEx/USPS/DHL people to be running around fulfilling millions of orders, something's ought to go wrong. I think it's still an amazingly solid fulfillment system that scales incredibly.
Re:How many got their items on time though? by Warlock7 · 2004-12-28 09:26 · Score: 1

Which "FPR"(press release) are you talking about? The link I posted said:
Now it [Amazon] is telling customers that iPods ordered in November will not arrive until February. Amazon customer services also told The Times that hundreds of other goods could not be delivered before Christmas. A spokesman would not give a more exact figure.
Which says nothing about successful on time deliveries. While the iWon article pointed to by the original /. post says nothing about total successful delivery percentage either.

Please point out the "FPR" you are referencing as it wasn't provided here and you've decided to carry on about it here.
Re:How many got their items on time though? by kaedemichi255 · 2004-12-28 16:52 · Score: 1

1. Go to www.amazon.com
2. Scroll to the bottom
3. Click on "Press Releases"

To assist those instructionally challenged, simply click here.
Re:How many got their items on time though? by Warlock7 · 2004-12-28 19:08 · Score: 1

Thanks for the link. It's interesting that you decided to respond to yourself, but thanks just the same.

As you pointed out, according to Amazon's self congratulatory press release, they met their holiday shipping deadlines for "over 99 percent" of their orders. It's interesting how they left out the finer details and the seemingly more relevant statistics though.

Amazon hit a high order mark of 2.8 million "units" ordered in one day. While that's great, we can extrapolate from that one day, that up to 27999 people didn't have their packages shipped to them, for just that days orders, in time to arrive for the holidays as those customers had expected. I'd be very interested in some useful statistics, like what was their total number of holiday orders, which would make that "over 99 percent" figure a little more meaningful. Unfortunately, their carefully worded press release doesn't necessarily mean what you have assumed that it means and with that volume of sales, the number of people that didn't have their orders shipped in time for the holidays becomes staggering. Don't get me wrong, their claim is very impressive, but as the volume of sales grows, so does the amount of disappointment associated to failures too.

Like you said, some of the shipments that didn't arrive in time for the holidays may have been due to the shippers rather than Amazon. I and many others that I know have seen Amazon claim to have shipped items when in fact they remain in their shipping facilities for days before they are actually received by the companies that do the actual shipping, which is, in many cases, how Amazon manages to claim to have shipped a delivery when they haven't actually completed the shipment yet. They have arrangements with some of their shipping partners to only make pick-ups from their warehouses once a week. So, they are able to claim to have shipped on a Monday, and charge your account early, even though the delivery isn't picked up by UPS or whoever else until the following Saturday. This sort of behavior would help their claims and not appear misleading with the way that the press release is written.

It would be a valid statistic if Amazon provided some useful numbers/percentages, like how many of their total sales actually made it to their final destination in time for the holidays. The point is that their responsibility doesn't end after the shipping label is slapped on a box, it ends when the package actually arrives at the final destination. When a package doesn't arrive the next day, even though the customer paid for overnight shipping, the money is refunded to the customer by Amazon, not the shipping company. At least, not directly.

Walmart is #1, sales next 3-4 retailers combined by SuperBanana · 2004-12-28 02:49 · Score: 1

Does anyone have any statistics on how many items say, a single retail store (like Wal-mart) sells in a single day? How about all of the stores in a chain. Data like that would help put things in perspective.

Walmart is the #1 retail chain in the world with sales around $220 Billion; its sales are larger than the next 3-4 retailers combined.

--
Please help metamoderate.

Old Navy? by duffbeer703 · 2004-12-28 02:57 · Score: 2, Funny

There's a reason why Old Navy is so cheap -- it's frigging disposable clothing!

Wash that Old Navy sweater twice and it will melt away in the dryer -- and you probably thought your neighbors were stealing your shit.

--
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK

Re:Old Navy? by garcia · 2004-12-28 03:02 · Score: 1

Wash that Old Navy sweater twice and it will melt away in the dryer -- and you probably thought your neighbors were stealing your shit.

Yup, you are absolutely correct. Their clothing is poorly made but will hold up if you take the time to wash and dry it carefully (read manually), but you shouldn't dry sweaters in a dryer anyway.

Depending on the piece of clothing they are usually washed in the washer and dryed hanging up. This limits wear and tear on the fabric. Delicates (like sweaters) are washed manually and dried flat. Works like a charm.
Re:Old Navy? by furball · 2004-12-28 04:14 · Score: 1

Or you do what I do ... throw all your clothes to the cleaners and let them deal with it.

Those people don't take chances with anything. My bright colored stuff gets dry cleaned so there's never any fading. Bright stuff stay bright year after year. Yes, it's more expensive and all but your clothes last forever and once you're fond of a particular item, your likelihood of having to replace it is slim.
Re:Old Navy? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 04:33 · Score: 0

Old Navy is owned by the Gap, in case the boycotters were unaware.
Re:Old Navy? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 06:47 · Score: 0

What is wrong with you moderators? There is a garcia post detailing how to handle your delicates, and it hasn't been modded +Informative yet???

C'mon, this guy even has a neighborhood in GTA San Andreas named after him. Now get off your thumbs and get with it, mods!
Re:Old Navy? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 07:50 · Score: 0

You've never bought clothing at Wal-Mart, have you?
Re:Old Navy? by duffbeer703 · 2004-12-28 08:03 · Score: 1

No... I learned long ago to equate low Wal-Mart prices with low Wal-Mart quality.

Ever since Sam Walton died, Wal-Mart has become exclusively a purveyor of junk.

--
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK

Oranges to apples by Guillermito · 2004-12-28 02:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

I think it wouldn't be fair comparing an online shop to a traditional one, at least from the IT perspective.

When customers purchase at WalMart, they only "hit the database" at check-out at the cash registrar. (OK, maybe they can check prices with a barcode scanner, but that's marginal)

In an online shop, the whole process is supported by the aplication: searching for items, showing images, specifications, recommendations, and of course, also the check-out.

Moreover, Amazon.com is a particularly complex online shop. They support things like wish lists, recommendations based on your purchase history, they even keep track of the items you have seen in your current session ("The page you made"), etc.

All of this add complexity, and that complexity must reflect in the IT infrastructure they're using. Not to mention that they have to support not only the customers that purchase items, but also those who just visit the site, browse for items, but choose not no buy anything.

Re:Oranges to apples by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 03:16 · Score: 0

Yea, but most of us are probably interested in the SALES here, rather than the down-and-dirty IT, since that is important to the growth of net use in the long-term.

Good megacorp by broothal · 2004-12-28 02:59 · Score: 1

I'm actually glad that they're doing well. They *almost* turned into an evil megacorp, but recently Amazon has behaved quite well, and their service level is top notch.

Re:Good megacorp by chakmol · 2004-12-28 13:11 · Score: 1

I agree about the service level. After having a lot of my online shopping ruined by sorry as mud merchants, I'm beginning to think that Amazon and QVC are the only ones who regularly get things right. A lot of the others are just nipping at the heels.

Misperseption.. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 02:59 · Score: 0

It would be more impressive if they had 32 orders per second, rather than 32 items per second.

Coming up with 32 items per second isn't that impressive since most stores could do that much business if you scale the transaction time up to the brick 'n mortal transaction times.

No, the parent doesn't have a point. by Radak · 2004-12-28 03:00 · Score: 1

Because any twit knows Amazon has only been in business for 10 years, and that's what the article is saying. It was their biggest season EVER, which it damn well better have been or they're doing something seriously wrong.

Re:No, the parent doesn't have a point. by dorsey · 2004-12-28 03:17 · Score: 3, Informative

He had a point, you just missed it. He was pointing out the sloppy writing by whoever wrote that article. Saying "busiest... in 10 years" implies that they were busier 10 years ago. If it was absolutely necessary to point out that Amazon has been in business for that long, they should have said something like "busiest... in their 10 year history".

--
hinderfreude ('hin-dur-"froi-d&), n. The feeling of joy derived from being in the way.

um by Stu+Charlton · 2004-12-28 03:06 · Score: 1

50 million items == 50 million rows. Any database with a B*Tree can efficiently query that. It says nothing about volume or concurrency of requests, which is where Oracle excels.

--
-Stu

Re:Grammar Nazi... by jarsonic · 2004-12-28 03:10 · Score: 0

Well, it's not a bug, just an oversight. Just wanted to point it out. Move along, nothing to see here...

And its all in Perl by gtoomey · 2004-12-28 03:15 · Score: 1, Interesting

Amazon uses Perl & the HTML::Mason templating system to process orders.

And Perl features in their Hot Jobs too.

Re:And its all in Perl by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 04:56 · Score: 2, Informative

Perl is only a small part of their system. All the old code is in C or C++, and there's a fair bit of Java these days. The fun part is that they are using perl at all, and that they use linux for pretty much everything.

They also have insanely high standards for getting hired. Bleh.

Your example isn't close to the same thing. by Warlock7 · 2004-12-28 03:34 · Score: 1

I have to disagree with you, shipping obligations of an online retailer are completely their own fault.

Your mother doesn't have an obligation to you like an online retailer does, she didn't make any guarantees for a delivery date and she also didn't miss here expected delivery date by over a month.

According to the article I posted the link to, Amazon is going to deliver some products which were ordered in November of 2004 in February of 2005. This is most likely more than a mere shipping problem, but it doesn't change the fact that they still have an obligation to their customers. When you purchase an item from Amazon and pay for next day shipping, but they don't ship for a week, they haven't lived up to their obligation to their customers.

Amazon also has a system in place which is supposed to give their customers very detailed information about when they can expect their deliveries. I have to disagree with your comparison, as it's not a valid one.

Re:Your example isn't close to the same thing. by devilspgd · 2004-12-28 21:11 · Score: 1

Every order I've ever had that has been late has included free shipping (plus they still shipped it overnight once the item became available, for the one time I requested overnight shipping)

They also split that order into multiple packages at no charge, which was decent of them.

This season I has Simpsons 5th season DVD in my mailbox 2 days before Amazon's original estimated ship date. Hard to argue with that.

--
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day, but teach a man to phish...
Re:Your example isn't close to the same thing. by Warlock7 · 2004-12-29 01:07 · Score: 1

Sounds like you've had good luck with them. I haven't been so lucky all the time. I and others I know have placed orders which were supposed to be overnight and Amazon has seemingly held onto some of those orders for up to five days before the actual shipment has occurred. This hasn't been the norm, but it has happened more than once to myself and a couple of people I know. We do quite a bit of ordering too. I believe that when a customer pays for overnight, then they should receive the package the next day.

Re:2.8 Million, at 32 Items per second by ch-chuck · 2004-12-28 03:35 · Score: 3, Informative

That was true in 1998 but now you're way out of date:

A survey by Thomson First Call put analysts' average estimates at earnings of 39 cents a share on revenue of $2.42 billion.

In the fourth quarter of last year, the Seattle online merchant earned 17 cents a share on $1.95 billion in revenue.

--
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }

Red Hat & Amazon by wbglinks · 2004-12-28 03:53 · Score: 1, Interesting

Didn't Amazon save 21 million dollars a year when they switched to Red Hat Linux to run their servers...sounds like it was a good move financially and performance wise.

--

WBG Links
www.wbglinks.net

32 per second? Whoop-de-doo! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 04:00 · Score: 3, Insightful

Ever been in a Walmart? How many times to you hear a 'beep' as an item is registered at the checkout?

I suspect most large, busy stores clock around 20-30 items sold per second on a regular basis. An enterprise the scale of WalMart might clock in thousands per second for all stores on exceptionally busy days.

This might be a 'record day' for Amazon, but it's hardly news.

Re:32 per second? Whoop-de-doo! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 04:09 · Score: 0

Yes, I have heard the beeping. The unceasing beeping. The beeping! It hurts us!

But seriously, the damn things don't beep at anywhere near 32 times per second in any single store.

Harry Potter by Kenneth+Stephen · 2004-12-28 04:14 · Score: 1

Possibly because the pre-orders for the next Harry Potter book were a significant percentage of that number?

--

There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.

Re:Walmart is the largest company in history by bludstone · 2004-12-28 04:23 · Score: 0, Troll

Of every dollar spent at any store in the USA (excluding auto supply stores) 7.5 cents goes to walmart.

If walmart was a nation, it would be considered china's 6th largest trading partner.

Walmart is huge. Mega huge. Nothing, ever, has come close to it.

Its so huge, that a single decision by walmart can affect the national, and even international economy.

Textbook case of a single entity having far, far too much power, imo.

--

no .sig

It's a secret because it's bad for profit! by bazily · 2004-12-28 04:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

Amazon.com strategy: sell everything at a loss and make it up in volume.

Yes, they sold 2.8 million units, but since it was the day after Thanksgiving, I'm sure most of those qualified for free shipping which can't be a good for the bottom line.

So why didn't Amazon make a bigger deal out of it? Because at the end of the quarter someone's going to want see some profit, and that isn't going to happen unless the accountants and marketing people get together.

bazily

------------
http://www.gibsoncompany.com/ - Office space for profitable companies!

--
Why cut IT when your office space costs $3/sf? gibso

Re:It's a secret because it's bad for profit! by Gogo+Dodo · 2004-12-28 06:24 · Score: 1

Uhh... if everything is sold at a loss, how is volume going to help? You'll just get a bigger loss. Amazon may sell things on a slim margin and rely on volume or perhaps it does have certain loss leaders and other things make a profit.
Amazon did make a profit last year. That would be real profit, not proforma profit.

Turn a profit? by jsimon12 · 2004-12-28 04:37 · Score: 1

32 items a second is all good and well but when will they actually have a posistive cash flow?

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bs?s=AMZN&annual

Re:Turn a profit? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 06:18 · Score: 1, Informative

They already do have positive cash flow:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cf?s=AMZN&annual
Re:Turn a profit? by jsimon12 · 2004-12-28 15:48 · Score: 1

I am not sure if a single quarter in 2003 really counts as the company being profitable.

Freedom of speech by wheelbarrow · 2004-12-28 04:40 · Score: 1

So what?

This is just an example of a company's shareholders exercising their freedom of speech. They are free to speak and you are free to consider their speech when you decide, voluntarily, to shop at Amazon or not.

Re:Freedom of speech by revscat · 2004-12-28 04:56 · Score: 1

Which was the whole point of the post. Thanks for pointing out the obvious.
Re:Freedom of speech by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 05:06 · Score: 0

I think he was trying to repress the great-grandparent.

A much more interesting question is why isn't the grandparent's poster lacing up his boots and heading over to Iraq? What a pussy.
Re:Freedom of speech by wheelbarrow · 2004-12-28 05:18 · Score: 1

I'm not sure I understand your post. Are you somehow implying that only paper tiger Iraq hawks care about silly notions like Freedom Of Speech?

But are they delivering them? by Hieronymus+Howard · 2004-12-28 04:57 · Score: 1

The christmas presents that I ordered from Amazon still haven't turned up. A dvd ordered from cdwow on the same day arrived a couple of days before christmas.

Re:But are they delivering them? by /dev/trash · 2004-12-28 07:04 · Score: 1

Odd. I ordered a DVD for a friend The Monday before Christmas and he got it Thursday.

Well, maybe... by lxt · 2004-12-28 05:05 · Score: 1

It's 1 million items, but each of those items is probably going to be at least an 8-12 track album. Some of them might be box sets, etc, so you're probably looking at a very rough figure of 15 million individual songs per day from Amazon alone.

Not compared to Wal*Mart... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 05:05 · Score: 1, Insightful

"Amazon set a new record of items sold on a single day. More than 2.8 million units or 32 items per second. That's a big store."

Not compared to Wal*Mart, which probably sells 2.8 million items per second...

Re:32 per second? Whoop-de-doo! by Big_Al_B · 2004-12-28 05:06 · Score: 1

Well, Amazon didn't accomplish 32 sales/second on any single LAN either.

If you're counting all of Amazon's daily sales worldwide, you should count all of Walmart's daily sales worldwide.

As usual, no context for the numbers by wealthychef · 2004-12-28 05:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

SOUNDS like a lot of business, but how much is a lot nowadays? I'd like to know if they are doing twice as much as their nearest competitors, or how many sales per second Home Depot does, etc. Instead we report a large number and stand back to wait for the ignorant people like me to go "wow." This looks like another case of lazy reporters basically forwarding press releases by position advocates and calling that a news article. No wonder blogs are taking over the world!

--
Currently hooked on AMP

Amazon and the GOP by anechoic · 2004-12-28 05:30 · Score: 2, Interesting

I visited a website shortly before Xmas: BuyBlue http://www.buyblue.org/ which published stats stating that Amazon donated 60% of their political contributions to the GOP. Not that one should base buying decisions on a corporations political contributions alone but it does make one think a little harder about what buying from Amazon really means.

Even if you did base buying decisions on politics by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 06:13 · Score: 1, Interesting

...compare this to how much you think the head of a given MegaRetail chain donates to the Republican Party.

(Hint: Probably a bit more than 60%.)

Re:2.8 Million, at 32 Items per second by radd0 · 2004-12-28 06:16 · Score: 1

I wouldn't say that. Amazon takes a cut to the tune of ~ 55 percent from their Advantage program "partners". Thats one huge markup.

Thats swell and all --- by bizitch · 2004-12-28 07:03 · Score: 1

but they totally sucked this year - I have *expedited* Christmas gifts this year that wont make it until something like February ....

I hope they reinvest all those record profits into some fucking infrastructure which can handle the load next year.

--
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano

Re:Thats swell and all --- by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 09:55 · Score: 0

I guess it is thier fault that thier shipping partners and manufactuers can't meet public demand.

If Sony says they have 300,000 PS2's for them to sell, but they really don't, is this Amazons fault?

Also, do you kiss your momma with that filthy mouth?

Re:2.8 Million, at 32 Items per second by kaedemichi255 · 2004-12-28 07:34 · Score: 1

Mod parent down. Get your financial facts right before you poke fun please.

number 1 item is...... by _tanden · 2004-12-28 07:56 · Score: 1

it must have been the day that they publicized the pre-order of the 6th Harry Potter book!!
=)

of course that does not ship till june... =(

Impressive, but... by JuggleGeek · 2004-12-28 08:36 · Score: 1

That's impressive, and more power to them.

But unless they are showing a profit, it isn't doing them any good. Last year, (fiscal 2003) they turned a profit for, I believe, the first time. They have 1.78 Billion in outstanding longterm debt.

I'd like to see them do well, and I'm a fan of online shopping, but so far, this looks mostly like a "That's nice, but..." situation.

Re:CRACKHEAD MODS by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 08:55 · Score: 0

Everything in this post is true, and can be backed up with a simple google search.

Yet it is modded a troll.

wtf is that shit?

Re:Even if you did base buying decisions on politi by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 09:18 · Score: 0

What the fuck are you blathering on about? Provide some evidence to support your stupidity. Oh, that's why you are posting as a Coward you're just making up stupid shit.

*ORDERS* FUCKWAD... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 10:26 · Score: 0

32 ORDERS per second. Not items. How many registers do you have to be running to handle 32 customers per second, every second of the day?

Re:2.8 Million, at 32 Items per second by adpowers · 2004-12-28 12:14 · Score: 1

Reminds me of a skit I saw one time. I think it might have been this SNL skit. When asked how they would make money, the person replied authoritatively, "Volume." I laughed my ass off at that, it reminded me of Amazon (who wasn't making a profit at the time) and dot-coms who had no business model.

Re:*ORDERS* FUCKWAD... RTFA Numbnuts by Anonymous Coward · 2004-12-28 12:18 · Score: 0

"The company also said it set a single-day sales record during the period with more than 2.8 million units, or 32 items per second, ordered across the globe."

why the secrecy..? by cybersekkin · 2004-12-28 13:53 · Score: 1

My money is because it is pre-sales of the new Harry Potter book (from the dumb enough to be true category)

242 comments