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Amazon.com Reporting This Holiday Season Their "Best Ever"
In a refreshing break from all the doom and gloom, Amazon.com is calling this holiday season their best ever. Reporting a 44 percent rise in the number of items sold, they are refusing to provide actual dollar amounts, so it is still a very subjective measurement. "Amazon customers ordered more than 6.3 million items on Dec. 15, compared with roughly 5.4 million on its peak day last year, the company said. It shipped more than 5.6 million products on its best day, a 44 percent rise over 2007, when it shipped about 3.9 million on its busiest day. The company did not provide dollar figures and wouldn't say whether the average value of orders had changed, and the jumps it reported Friday are in line with increases Amazon has seen since it started releasing the figures in 2002."
Just because they sold more items doesn't mean they made as much of a profit as they would have during a non-holiday season.
People are buying more tangible items at cut rate prices instead of handing out gift cards - this helps retailers anywhere move more items.
The kick-to-the-balls is when the profit enters the equation - if the profit margin on those 6.3 million items was razor thin (or there were more "loss leaders" than usual) then this report is crap.
The big-box retailers taking over all the specialty shops across the US are actually reducing the diversity of goods available locally (the ACE hardware actually has more depth than Lowes in many areas for example). So aside from the obvious lower prices and "dropped at your door" convenience, there just aren't any local options for lots of us living in generica if "best Buy" doesn't carry your desired trinket.
Sheldon
On the other hand, every single thing I ordered from Amazon got there on time. Even the thing that said 'it probably won't arrive before Christmas'.
And not just Christmas stuff... Everything I've ever ordered has come in properly. I order enough that I signed up for their 'Amazon Prime' service, even. That's a lot of stuff.
It sounds to me like you're the victim of extremely bad luck.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Is anyone else totally disillusioned with consumers for things like this? The worldwide economy is crumbling because people didn't know how much was too much. And now, after people know that, they *keep* *buying*. Big screen TVs, _thousands_ in gift cards, other expensive purchases, when they should be starting to save up, conserve. When will people learn?
I think the key isn't "don't buy anything" but the key is "live within your means." The unfortunate thing is that, too many people don't know what their means are. They have no idea about their budget, or what they can afford, or how much they actually spend on X Y or Z each month. (Seriously, ask someone who doesn't budget how much they think they spend on eating out each month.)
Once a person sits down and figures out a good solid budget, money, surprisingly does not present as many issues because, instead of spending it willy-nilly, it's being managed.
And, as you suggested, saving (and investing, if your finances allow for it), is a definite must. Once you are saving and paying your bills then you can go and make that fun purchase.
Of course, that's boring. So what the heck am I saying? SPEND! SPEND MY PRETTIES!
It will be the great depression until a President that NPR likes is in office. Then it will only be a depression in looking back at who caused it.
Media bias is interesting and tricky, especially when it uses different "subtle" terminology in different contexts of different people to throw spins. Example being "recession" vs. "depression" vs. "setback" vs. "economic trouble" vs. "economic crisis." "Fee" vs. "tax." "Lawsuit" vs. "challenge." You get the idea.
IMO, Amazon's success, if they are being honest which I will give them the benefit of the doubt for, makes sense. I don't think this economic crisis is as bad as most politicians would have us believe (they're still getting paid, right?), and most people still bought gifts... but they might have not gone to Macy's or other "expensive" stores and rather looked for the cheaper options. Tighter money often drives people to look for better deals, not necessarily buy fewer items.
Now, if there was a sudden 50% drop of Americans' TV service, that might point to a serious recession. (for the record, I don't own a TV nor is there one in my house...)
Yes and No.
Damn easy, great selection, good delivery options, cheap, no crowds... brilliant.
However I'm not sure I like the new trend of having lots of items listed which they don't sell, and farming the actual selling off to smaller companies I've never heard of. And it's easy to miss the small print saying it's supplied by someone else and effectively a marketplace purchase.
Not that I have anything against the marketplace, but blurring the boundaries too much annoys me. This is especially annoying when it comes to things like SD/MemStick cards, as there has been a lot of trouble with fakes lately and I want to buy from a supplier I trust - Amazon.
All that said, it's no wonder some of the shitty high-street chains are going bankrupt. The days when you can overcharge for tat because you're the only game in town are over.
Amazon's fulfilment business is up, but that doesn't mean Amazon itself is selling more. More and more, Amazon is doing order processing for others. The fact that they're focusing on number of items shipped rather than revenue probably means revenue didn't go up.
Language may change over time, but it seems these days that the new meaning is already represented by an existing expression and that the old meaning doesn't have a new or alternate expression. It's this loss of expression that drives me to correct people's writing and speaking.
The "new meaning" of "Begging the question" is already available as "Raising the question".
When you use words intelligently you'll find that your point is often much more clearly understood. Changing language in the means mentioned primarily distracts and confuses the intention of the speaker.
-- i am jack's amusing sig file
The one item that was damaged from Amazon, out of the 30 or 40 I bought, they had the replacement in my hands 2 days after reporting it - and I haven't even returned the damaged item yet! Amazon is getting my money next year.
Damn easy, great selection, good delivery options, cheap, no crowds... brilliant.
You neglected one extraordinary feature that no one else has mentioned in any of these comments-- no sales tax. When it comes to high-dollar electronic purchases, I always go to Amazon or Newegg. Brick and mortars can not compete when they have to pile on a sales tax. For instance, I just bought a Nikon D90 camera with a couple of lenses. Sales tax in Austin, TX. boosted the price more than a hundred dollars over what Amazon was charging.
As the economy continues to crumble, more people will probably recognize this cost-saving opportunity and Amazon will be able to brag amount recession-resistant sales figures. Not that this article indicates they have actually made more money than in previous years.
Seth
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
On NPR it is and always has been "Mr. Bush", but it's already "President Obama", and he's not even president yet. That said, I still listen to NPR as my primary radio news outlet. You merely have to understand the context and apply the appropriate amount of salt...
I wouldn't say media bias is "interesting". It just "is". And there are outlets to fit every bias except "neutral".
Unless things get a few orders of magnitude worse, it'll take some serious trickery to look back on this and call it a "depression". People calling it a depression are seriously misinformed as to what the Great Depression was like. People tend to view the problems they are currently experiencing as worse than what happened to other people in the past. It only stands to reason that looking back on this people will see their future economic "crisis" as worse than this one. If you stand back and look at this objectively, even today you would have a hard time saying what we have now is "worse" than what happened in 2000-2002 depending on which metrics you use.