Losing money on the two-day shipping in order to make money on the volume of sales is just like saying “we will lose money on leasing planes but make it up on the product sale”. That announcement was certainly divergent e-commerce strategy at the time, but Amazon intends to cover its basis on the overall transaction.

In today’s plight, it’s the sheer scale of money Amazon might lose fulfilling its backlog of orders, and potentially why its delaying shipping with the “essential items” reasoning, that’s of particular interest.