Amazon: Feet of Clay
July 27, 2012
Two Amazon items caught my attention. Amazon has been on my mind. One of my devices has a fuzzy gray name so I cannot send content to it. Amazon customer support chatted and emailed up a storm, but, Maxie the iPad, is not going to get any auto delivery of books. Nice. The other Amazon issues was the financial reports and the fact that Amazon’s seems to have a wee problem with cost control. Most of the analysts were cheerleading for the eCommerce site which wants to be Applegle or GoogAp.
Here is the Amazon number I noted:
Total Operating Expense: June 30, 2012, $12,727
Total Revenue: June 30, 2012, $12,834.
Thin? Yep, thin as one of those used music CDs I can buy when Maxie the iPad works with the Amazon outfit’s ordering system.
Now this is interesting because Amazon’s costs sure seem to continue to go up and fast. So Amazon revenues have to keep on going up too. The marketing about cloud objects, the push into publishing, research and development, and device making mania are going to drive up costs. Unless that top line gets some more juice, trouble looms.
Same day delivery is either out or on hold. Why?
“Amazon CFO Doesn’t See a Way to Do Same Day Delivery” reveals that the problem is not the idea. The problem is a CFO problem. Not logistics. Not marketing. Not technology. A CFO problem. In my book, CFOs worry mostly about three things: money and money and the SEC.
A failure to seize an opportunity makes a Julius Caesar into a Internet Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus.
Stephen E Arnold, July 27, 2012
Sponsored by Ikanow
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