This week in the SellerEngine Amazon News Round-up, we’ll learn about Amazon’s quarterly earnings report, new job opportunities at Amazon, a brewing price war on books and Amazon’s “showrooming” dominance.
Amazon Sales up 22% in Q2 2013 – Did you see Amazon’s earning announcement last week? Their sales were up 22% from 2012, but posted a loss of about $7 million on $15.7 billion in sales. How does Amazon continue to increase their sales but remain more-or-less a break-even business? By reinvesting in infrastructure. This year alone, they’ve announced several new fulfillment centers around the country and have invested more money into digital licensing agreements for streaming video. We ask this question every quarter, but when will investors demand profits?
Amazon Promises Hiring Binge – According to this article from USA Today, Amazon is planning to add more than 7,000 jobs. 5,000 will be in fulfillment centers and more than 2,000 will be customer service positions. Amazon will also be offering to pay up to 95% of tuition for eligible employees, even if their classes aren’t relevant to their positions at Amazon. I think this is a great PR move, what about you?
Overstock Starts a Price War with Amazon – This week Overstock.com decided to undercut Amazon’s prices on some books by as much as 10%. They say that after 10 years in the media business, they’re finally at a place where they can compete with Amazon’s prices and they’ve decided to be agressive. It’ll be interesting to see how, or if, Amazon reacts. And how long can Overstock maintain these prices?
Amazon is Killing Retail Shopping – According to this article, 92% of shoppers use Amazon to make price comparisons on their smartphones. Amazon’s price check app and their mobile site make it so easy to use a smartphone to compare prices and to “showroom” in retail stores. More interesting is that shoppers are turning to Amazon instead of search giant Google. More than double the number of shoppers prefer to use Amazon for “showrooming” than Google.