Re:Venture Predation: Using venture finance to price below c...
by snake_doc on Friday May 19, 2023 @03:02PM
(#36005647)
Amazon isn't unique in this case. Your example is a bit of cherry picking. These tactics are common in retail (demonstrated by the fact that WMT, AMZ, and COST are the top 3 retailers in the world).
> access to capital at cheaper rates than most countries due to their position as a stock market darling
Last I recall, AMZ uses an internal WACC of 8-9%. That's really only marginally "cheaper" cost of capital than most other mega-cap firms, it's not really a big advantage.
Its cost of capital advantage mostly comes from its access to cheap short-term credit in its retail cash cycle, not the equity market (like you suggest).
> "reinvesting in the business" to bleed competitors dry. Few other companies on the planet have the ability to run negative or break-even margins the way Amazon does.
Costco regularly runs negative or break-even margins in its merchandising. Its language for this is "reinvesting in value" or "reinvesting in price". It can do this, similar to Amazon, because of their membership business.
Walmart also regularly runs break-evens/negative margins in select merchandising lines depending on geography and competition.
> access to capital at cheaper rates than most countries due to their position as a stock market darling
Last I recall, AMZ uses an internal WACC of 8-9%. That's really only marginally "cheaper" cost of capital than most other mega-cap firms, it's not really a big advantage.
Its cost of capital advantage mostly comes from its access to cheap short-term credit in its retail cash cycle, not the equity market (like you suggest).
> "reinvesting in the business" to bleed competitors dry. Few other companies on the planet have the ability to run negative or break-even margins the way Amazon does.
Costco regularly runs negative or break-even margins in its merchandising. Its language for this is "reinvesting in value" or "reinvesting in price". It can do this, similar to Amazon, because of their membership business.
Walmart also regularly runs break-evens/negative margins in select merchandising lines depending on geography and competition.