Amazon Losses Widen As It Braces For Rocky Holiday Quarter

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Not only did Amazon post a larger than expected 3Q loss, the company says its fourth quarter earnings won't be much better.

The company on Thursday posted a third-quarter loss of $437 million, or 95 cents a share, and revenue of $20.58 billion, falling short of analysts' average forecast of a loss of 74 cents a share with $20.84 billion in revenue. More importantly, the company said it expects sales between $27.3 billion and $30.3 billion for the critical fourth quarter, which also misses Wall Street's forecast of $30.89 billion.
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I will probably be in for about a billion myself in Amazon purchases. They can bank on that.
 
Amazon makes plenty of dosh off me.
 
I almost bought a TV today from them...

Only problem is charge state taxes AND don't haul away the old one.

I am waiting for BB to get it in stock, they will have fun hauling my 34" tube TV away muah ah ah ah ah.
 
Oh, I dunno, maybe if everything I wanted to buy wasn't a fuckin' add-on item?
 
Twitch, Fire Phone (success or not), Fire TV, Fire Tablet Refresh, Prime Music, Lots of money spent this year not having to do with the Core Retail operation. I doubt their in real trouble. They just need to stop experimenting for a while if they do get in trouble.
 
dandirk said:
I am waiting for BB to get it in stock, they will have fun hauling my 34" tube TV away muah ah ah ah ah.
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That's just mean. My old Samsung 30" crt weighed 120lbs and had razor sharp edges on the bottom to punish anyone stupid enough to pick it up.

Oh, wait Best Buy? Carry on.
 
Amazon does something crazy...
Actually invest in its infrastructure, building more distribution centers, giving more options to customers, helping themselves in the long run and not just pumping up the price of shares.
 
they don't care much about losses for now. their goal is to crush the competition including brick and mortar stores with prices they can't compete with.
 
Our company has had an Amazon Prime account for several years. At first, it was the best thing ever; I could buy whatever I want, when ever I wanted. Now, it's becoming less attractive as the cost of items slowly increase to cover shipping costs. In some cases, items are more expensive on Amazon that they are at big box stores. We are using it less and less than we use to...
 
SGA76 said:
Amazon does something crazy...
Actually invest in its infrastructure, building more distribution centers, giving more options to customers, helping themselves in the long run and not just pumping up the price of shares.
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And this is great and something that a company should do but at some point they have to turn a profit in order to sustain and even expand these activities.
 
SGA76 said:
Amazon does something crazy...
Actually invest in its infrastructure, building more distribution centers, giving more options to customers, helping themselves in the long run and not just pumping up the price of shares.
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The distribution centers shouldn't be all over. I don't buy from Amazon directly now that I need to pay tax, I don't care if I would otherwise need to wait another day. Even with Prime Amazon would use dodgy lasership to deliver packages. I don't need things immediately, I want things for less.
 
OFaceSIG said:
I had no idea Amazon was losing money.
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Amazon isn't a very profitable company. I bet if you'd ask the average person they'd probably think that Amazon was making tons of cash and that Microsoft was the one losing money.
 
I love purchasing things from Amazon, but to be honest, their business/investment model is confusing. They seem to have gotten themselves involved in a little bit of everything. They invest heavily in their own company, which is a different tactic than a lot of big businesses today, so I hope it continues to work for them. I just wonder if at some point they will not face significant pressure from investors that want to see an immediate return on their investment in the form of a dividend.
 
I liked to buy from Amazon, but I am glad I'm not an investor in the company.
I think Jim Cramer called them a "charity stock" or something similar. His point was they really did not make a lot of money. Contrast to AAPL, they make money hands over fists.
Long term, Amazon seems a safe bet - but, my investment dollars are going to be invested elsewhere.

That said, I'll continue buying stuff from Amazon. It's probably the best online store.
 
steakman1971 said:
I liked to buy from Amazon, but I am glad I'm not an investor in the company.
I think Jim Cramer called them a "charity stock" or something similar. His point was they really did not make a lot of money. Contrast to AAPL, they make money hands over fists.
Long term, Amazon seems a safe bet - but, my investment dollars are going to be invested elsewhere.

That said, I'll continue buying stuff from Amazon. It's probably the best online store.
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Their stock is taking a bit of beating today in an otherwise pretty flat day, down almost 8%. I think that it's good that Amazon is diversified but they don't have a core competency cash cow and there's nothing that there're doing now that will probably ever become one.
 
I think I'm up to around 80 orders this year.

I've bought video's, TV shows, Kindles and a lot of content from them, I'm a member that gets to review their new video content and I get paid for it :)

I'm fully invested in the Amazon setup, I love it, and I hope it stays the course.
 
Seems they changed their site recently. It all looks different now.
 
Gweenz said:
That's just mean. My old Samsung 30" crt weighed 120lbs and had razor sharp edges on the bottom to punish anyone stupid enough to pick it up.

Oh, wait Best Buy? Carry on.
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Yup.. the plastic at the bottom is thin/hollowed out and cuts into your hand, I think I still have scars from the last time I moved it 8 years ago!
 
Megalith said:
Oh, I dunno, maybe if everything I wanted to buy wasn't a fuckin' add-on item?
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This and:

Trimlock said:
Fix your damn search engine Amazon.
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This are why I don't bother sometimes. Needed some SATA cables a while back but they were add on items so I just went to Newegg and bought them. I don't get that. And yeah their ancient and just awful search engine is well documented.
 
steakman1971 said:
I liked to buy from Amazon, but I am glad I'm not an investor in the company.
I think Jim Cramer called them a "charity stock" or something similar. His point was they really did not make a lot of money. Contrast to AAPL, they make money hands over fists.
Long term, Amazon seems a safe bet - but, my investment dollars are going to be invested elsewhere.

That said, I'll continue buying stuff from Amazon. It's probably the best online store.
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i agree with charity stock.

they're not making money, but we can't do without them either.

with so many people using amazon, I don't know why they don't just try to make some ad revenue from all the hits.
 
The one thing that would definitely motivate me to buy more from Amazon, (tax collecting be damned as long as I still get free shipping) would be if their search engine would provide results on what I'm looking for, and not be like "hair ties are the same thing as a video card, right?"
 
They need to stop trying to sell me items that sell me items on Amazon.com
 
A company that will do 30 billion in business in the 4th quarter alone, but can afford to lose half a billion while doing it.

This is not healthy for the rest of the economy.

Just how much loss, exactly, would it take to bankrupt them? Because frankly, with the year-on-year losses they've taken it should have happened a long time ago.

No business should be able to survive losses at these levels for long.

Even the mighty billionaire behind the company shouldn't be able to tolerate too many half billion loss quarters.

Something smells to high heaven.
 
I think Amazon is way overdue for a site design overhaul, and that includes the shitty search engine and practically useless filter options on the side...newegg's filters suck too.
 
Wtf are you guys doing to not get your searches? Sure after the 5th or 6th item their results kinda make me go wtf but I've never in 10 years plus not found something I was looking for almost immediately.
 
It's amazing how Amazon can keep losing money and continue to exist. I get it that they and their investors are in it for the long haul...but still
 
Amazon search is just fine. Quit being stupid with your searches.
 
Climber said:
Wtf are you guys doing to not get your searches? Sure after the 5th or 6th item their results kinda make me go wtf but I've never in 10 years plus not found something I was looking for almost immediately.
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If you know what you're looking for its fine but if you're not sure and want to browse different things then Iit's a real pain in the balls and just about worthless when compared to Newegg's.
 
Amazon's search engine IS Newegg when you shop PC parts.
You find what you want, check the details list for compatibility, then search Amazon by the product #.

Seriously, their search engine is a joke.
I don't know how many times I've tried to narrow by brand, and instead of narrowing by brand it just moves more of the narrowed brand to the top, ie, check Logitech, and instead of narrowing down to just Logitech it just moves more Logitech products towards the top of your search results but leaves in Corsair, Razr, Anker and everything else as well.
Dear god NEVER try to search for RAM at Amazon, I'd rather drive nails through my tender bits...
 
Advil said:
A company that will do 30 billion in business in the 4th quarter alone, but can afford to lose half a billion while doing it.

This is not healthy for the rest of the economy.

Just how much loss, exactly, would it take to bankrupt them? Because frankly, with the year-on-year losses they've taken it should have happened a long time ago.

No business should be able to survive losses at these levels for long.

Even the mighty billionaire behind the company shouldn't be able to tolerate too many half billion loss quarters.

Something smells to high heaven.
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It's a good thing you never looked at AMD's financials then.


PS: For companies that are smart they have retained earnings kept as cash reserves such that they can weather down turns.
 
Megalith said:
Oh, I dunno, maybe if everything I wanted to buy wasn't a fuckin' add-on item?
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Prime has always been a loss leader because of their free shipping. If those items were not ad on items, they'd be losing even more money.
 
OregonLAN said:
Our company has had an Amazon Prime account for several years. At first, it was the best thing ever; I could buy whatever I want, when ever I wanted. Now, it's becoming less attractive as the cost of items slowly increase to cover shipping costs. In some cases, items are more expensive on Amazon that they are at big box stores. We are using it less and less than we use to...
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BUT IF YOU GIVE UP YOUR PRIME SHIPPING YOU CAN GET $1 OFF AN EBOOK!!!
 
I keep reading about people complaining about the tax. What would be an example percentage of sales tax for some of the states?
 
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