I'd like to point out that Amazon DOES NOT use MySQL before the MySQL kiddies say "see, it can scale!"
-- I don't respond to AC's.
Re:Which day?
by
Attar81
·
· Score: 5, Informative
It says Thanksgiving Weekend, so I would guess that's it that Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year.
Re:For comparison?
by
jacobcaz
·
· 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:I'll bet...
by
Haydn+Fenton
·
· 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:Profitability?
by
garcia
·
· 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?
Similar story has been running on CNN for a couple days now.
Re:How to calculate rough per store sales
by
LetterJ
·
· 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.
I hear the rainforest is still in need of saving, if you'd like a cause celebre...
-- For more information, click here.
Re:No, the parent doesn't have a point.
by
dorsey
·
· 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.
Re:2.8 Million, at 32 Items per second
by
ch-chuck
·
· 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.
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
Keighvin
·
· 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:And its all in Perl
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· 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.
Re:Turn a profit?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Slashdot Mirror
I'd like to point out that Amazon DOES NOT use MySQL before the MySQL kiddies say "see, it can scale!"
I don't respond to AC's.
It says Thanksgiving Weekend, so I would guess that's it that Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year.
- 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.
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.
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?
Similar story has been running on CNN for a couple days now.
"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
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.
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.
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); }
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.
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.
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.
They already do have positive cash flow:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/cf?s=AMZN&annual