Re:Groupon Restates Revenue, Revenue Fell In Half, COO Exits
by mode0 on Friday September 23, 2011 @08:05PM
(#3032074)
So you are saying that even if no money goes to amazon, they book revenue?
Re:Groupon Restates Revenue, Revenue Fell In Half, COO Exits
by dekz on Friday September 23, 2011 @08:28PM
(#3032107)
I understood it as, money goes to Amazon but then it immediately moves to the merchant. Showing the money as a revenue then eventually an expense. They probably hold that revenue for a certain financial period and write the expense in another. IANAA.
Re:Groupon Restates Revenue, Revenue Fell In Half, COO Exits
by maxerickson on Saturday September 24, 2011 @07:56AM
(#3033048)
I looked into their annual report:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol...
In 2010, they say "Generally, we recognize gross revenue from items we sell from our inventory and recognize our net share of revenue of items sold by other sellers."
(Page 19, the second paragraph)
portman's comment could still apply to sales where Amazon acts as the merchant instead of just the storefront.
Amazon books revenue when someone orders a product, even if that product is "fulfilled by" a different merchant behind the scenes. Some people think they shouldn't be able to count that as revenue. Intelligent accountants disagree with one another.
Accounting is hard. It's rarely black and white. Anyone who was seriously interested in buying Groupon knew what their business model was (collect X from consumer, give X/2 to merchant) and this restatement won't change anyone's informed opinion.