Amazon will never do that, because it can't. It's in retail. Retail is and always will be a low margin business.
Is there an example of a large retailer that doesn't manufacture its own goods that has profits in the double digits?
http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2012/11/16/jeff-bezos-amaz...
I know that I find it a pain to shop elsewhere now, not just because of price, but because I've grown so used to the reliable delivery times of Amazon/Prime. I know almost to the hour when my packages are going to arrive. That's a killer feature worth at least a moderate bump in price before I'd shop elsewhere.
what would you rather invest in (assume there are no costs other than inventory to keep it simple).
A store that has $100K of inventory that turns inventory once a year with a 20% profit margin
or
A store that has $100K of inventory that it turns 10 times a year with a 5% profit margin
tell that to apple.
They're now the best mail-order retailer, and they've beaten out local merchants for some classes of goods. But there's a long way they can go in terms of beating local merchants for most of the rest of what people buy. My guess is that Bezos isn't slowing down until Walmart is hurting.
Yet, how do you tell when Amazon are about to do that? I would've thought they'd do it when revenue growth starts slowing. ie. When the strategy of spending money to make money starts being less effective, as there is steadily harder gains to be got from it. That's when I'd turn on the tap.
So just as Amazon are about to do this (potentially anyway), that's when people sell? I'd say this is by far the best time to buy...