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Re:My Developer friends are upset about Apple vs Amazon by Tloewald on Sunday February 03, 2013 @03:21PM (#5160988)
Set aside Apple altogether. Let's just consider Amazon.

Where is Amazon going to suddenly start making money to justify its market cap? Suddenly increase prices and thus profit margins? Their competitors will eat them alive. Grow their business? Who isn't shopping online with Amazon already? It's just nutty. Their entire business plan is selling razor blade handles at a loss so they can sell you razors at a wafer thin margin.

Amazon is the last part of the 1990s bubble that keeps going simply because it's run very efficiently.

Oh and if the states ever get the balls to tax Amazon based on its affiliate network it has no margin to operate at all.

Re:My Developer friends are upset about Apple vs Amazon by peripitea on Sunday February 03, 2013 @04:20PM (#5161201)
>Grow their business? Who isn't shopping online with Amazon already?

The vast majority of retail purchases are not conducted through Amazon. Just look at Walmart's revenue compared to Amazon's. There is plenty of room to grow.

Re:My Developer friends are upset about Apple vs Amazon by Tloewald on Sunday February 03, 2013 @08:26PM (#5161960)
You're right that we could all buy everything online in theory, but this seems implausible and inefficient. Amazon is alreaspdy selling stuff online (e.g. Cat litter and toilet paper) that do not make economic sense. In any event, Amazon's share price has priced in something like a one hundred fold growth in profit (for those odd quarters where it actually makes a profit).
Re:My Developer friends are upset about Apple vs Amazon by SCdF on Sunday February 03, 2013 @04:47PM (#5161311)
Anecdote: my girlfriend has never bought anything off Amazon. She did just spend ~500 on a bunch of clothes online though.

Also, in terms of Amazon's electronic offerings (music, app store, movies, a surprisingly large amount of the Kindle catalogue etc) none of that is available outside the US and a couple of other markets, so they have lots of room to grow still.

Re:My Developer friends are upset about Apple vs Amazon by macspoofing on Sunday February 03, 2013 @03:40PM (#5161061)
>Where is Amazon going to suddenly start making money to justify its market cap? Suddenly increase prices and thus profit margins? Their competitors will eat them alive. Grow their business? Who isn't shopping online with Amazon already? It's just nutty. Their entire business plan is selling razor blade handles at a loss so they can sell you razors at a wafer thin margin.

Amazon has its challenges, but so does Google, Apple, Microsoft and every other corporations in existence. As for growth, there's plenty of opportunities for Amazon. They have their nascent streaming media business, digital goods (like books) to sell, grow their tablet and phone (?) business, build out AWS and cloud services and continue growing their online-retail market share domestically and internationally.

Re:My Developer friends are upset about Apple vs Amazon by speeder on Sunday February 03, 2013 @04:06PM (#5161151)
I am from Brazil, I bought my first book at amazon in january, it is yet to arrive, and I paid 30 usd for a 14 day shipping.

What if Amazon had a local warehouse and a portuguese language site for example?

Re:My Developer friends are upset about Apple vs Amazon by robryan on Sunday February 03, 2013 @05:56PM (#5161575)
Blame your countries customs. I can only assume they make imports inconvenient on purpose. We have avoided marketing to brazil as shipping times are extremely variable if they arrive at all.
Re:My Developer friends are upset about Apple vs Amazon by speeder on Sunday February 03, 2013 @07:55PM (#5161897)
Well, yes...

For example here to import a car you must be a company with special permit.

You cannot drive a car across the border and keep it.

The result is that the Brazillian astra in Brazil costs 25k USD. That same car, from the same factory in Argentina is 15K and has better engine and airbags (the Brazillian version you need to pay separately to have airbags)

Re:My Developer friends are upset about Apple vs Amazon by jmduke on Sunday February 03, 2013 @03:38PM (#5161052)
> Where is Amazon going to suddenly start making money to justify its market cap?

This question seems to be asked a lot, and I don't think people understand what they're asking. Market cap is shares times share price. That's all it is. You can use it as a proxy for net worth, but you don't have to.

Re:My Developer friends are upset about Apple vs Amazon by YZF on Sunday February 03, 2013 @06:08PM (#5161610)
It's what you are paying for % ownership of the business. Isn't that exactly what you should care about? If you buy a new house do you care about the "share price" or how much the house costs? If you can rent it out for $100 year would you buy it for $100B?
Re:My Developer friends are upset about Apple vs Amazon by Afforess on Sunday February 03, 2013 @03:59PM (#5161126)
>Grow their business? Who isn't shopping online with Amazon already?

Tons of people. Outside of the USA, Amazon is still very small, with not a significant product offering.

Re:My Developer friends are upset about Apple vs Amazon by josephlord on Sunday February 03, 2013 @06:16PM (#5161634)
It is properly big in the UK and also locally present in other major European markets. Amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr etc.