Amazon: Our Holiday Sales Were Great. Just Don’t Ask Us to Tell You About Them
by Peter Kafka
Posted on December 26, 2008 at 7:52 AM PT
Retail was supposed to get hammered during the holiday season that just ended, and a new survey says that sales fell four percent. But Amazon says Christmas 2008 was its “best ever.” How so?
Jeff Bezos and company won’t say. Amazon (AMZN) is only doling out a handful of statistics to quantify its success. Like the number of items ordered on its peak day–6.3 million–and the number of items shipped on its peak day–5.6 million units.
Those numbers don’t give you any sense of what kind of stuff consumers were ordering, and what prices. Observers will eventually get a better handle on that over time as Amazon releases its financials, but don’t expect too much disclosure: The company is famously reticent about letting outsiders peek inside.
And in any case, Amazon was supposed to do well over the past few months. The real surprise would be if the company had said it hadn’t crushed the holiday season, which is why Amazon’s shares are only up by two percent or so today.
Comments
AMZN is only up slightly because of the bashers on CNBC and yourself. When they prefer to focus on the the same old bad news retail store song.
Posted by Jeff Stevens at December 26th, 2008 at 10:31 amWhile CNBC allows the Gold pumper to go uncontested.
They same way they allowed T Boone to pump oil to $140 earlier this year.
The power of media, and day traders!
Jeff, I’m confused. Am I holding back AMZN from bigger gains? Or am I keeping it afloat? Please clarify which one. And more important – how I’m doing it.
Posted by Peter Kafka at December 26th, 2008 at 12:11 pmYour article sounds skeptical of Amazon’s results, as have the broadcasters CNBC. If that isn’t the case, I apologize.
Posted by Jeff Stevens at December 26th, 2008 at 12:50 pmAMZN blew away numbers in 2007 and confirmed that online retail had taken hold. Brick and Mortar seem to be going away quickly.
Even Apple ships directly from China with online orders.
AMZN’s sales are up because when you shop there you’re treated as a valued customer when you need help plus it’s easy to do on your own.
Go to a brick and mortar and it’s nothing but a hassle from parking to getting some help from “salespeople” who are hired to do stock work. Helping customers is on their Top 100 Priorities – somewhere between numbers 90 and 95.
Wait until their December sales come out: “It’s a difficult environment, customers are not spending as much etc etc”. Blah, blah, blah.
Tell that to Mr. Bezos!
Posted by Eli Bensky at December 26th, 2008 at 1:41 pmDoesn’t seem surprising that discounters did well in an economic downturn (regardless if it is real, perceived, or some combination of the two… perception is everything).
I think a lot of people with formerly “religious” misgivings about Walmart decided that saving money was more important than taking a stand this year.
In my case I’ve been a fan of Walmart for years, but made the switch this year to doing all my holiday shopping from the comfort of my living room. paying Amazon’s flat rate for free shipping all year was well worth it.
Not coincidentally, I got more last minute e-mail solicitations from companies I didn’t even know had my e-mail address than ever before.
Clearly some who missed the big wave are getting their boards ready for the secondary ones.
Posted by Mac Beach at December 26th, 2008 at 1:50 pmBoth brick and mortar and online retailers need to stop focusing so much on the holiday season. Produce good products, offer good support, and listen to your customers. These are things that any retailer can do all year long. Yes, the holidays produce the biggest sales but that doesn’t mean you can’t profit from the rest of the year. Stop selling like people did 100 years ago. The world has changed.
Posted by Ken Okel at December 27th, 2008 at 8:11 amAMZN put out the same press release on 12/26/2007. The issue is whether they beat last year in profit while B&M lost.
Posted by Jeff Stevens at December 27th, 2008 at 8:31 amPersonally I was unable to find what I wanted much less size in B&M even though I could touch and feel. Then go back online and buy “in stock”. There is also a red flag on the prices. I thought there was a law that said regular prices were indeed regular. Because I thought the 50% sales were a good starting point. B&M could have done better than we think, if they had money to stock in the first place.
I don’t doubt that Amazon sold more units than they have in the past. There’s on overall trend toward e-commerce, which benefits Amazon for obvious reasons. What we don’t know yet is what kind of stuff people were buying, and what kind of margins. My gut is that both AMZN and B&M were selling lots of lower-priced items at steep discounts.
Posted by Peter Kafka at December 27th, 2008 at 8:43 amMac is spot on about Wal Mart. People love to complain about how they do business, but when it comes time to saving money, all those moral issues go out the door. In “The Wal-Mart Effect” there are a bunch of stories of people that lost their jobs because of a Wal-Mart coming to town but they shop there because it’s the only place they can afford.
Now that’s the power of branding/pricing.
Posted by Carlos Portocarrero at December 31st, 2008 at 7:38 am