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online bookstores posts

Amazon Trades Lower Despite Topping Estimates for Third Quarter

Posted Jan 28th 2010 6:00PM by Michael Fowlkes (RSS feed)
Filed under: After the Bell, Earnings Reports, Products and Services, Apple Inc (AAPL), Amazon.com (AMZN), Market Matters, Technology

Shares of e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) are trading lower in after hours trading despite posting better than expected earnings this afternoon for its fourth quarter.

Going into this afternoon's earnings release, analysts were expecting to see Amazon show earnings of 72 cents per share, on revenues of $9.04 billion in revenues.

Continue reading Amazon Trades Lower Despite Topping Estimates for Third Quarter

Borders continues to flounder

Posted May 30th 2007 8:10PM by Zac Bissonnette (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Bad News, Amazon.com (AMZN)

Shares of book retailer Borders Group Inc. (NYSE: BGP) traded down 4.72% today as the company reported less than stellar earnings. The company lost 61 cents per share, compared to 31 cents in the same quarter last year. Same-store sales at the flagship Borders superstores declined 1.9%.

As I wrote in March, I don't really understand the company's strategy. They slashed their customer rewards program, making their books even more overpriced compared to online bookstores like Amazon.com (NYSE: AMZN). That move has done little inspire customer loyalty, and it's actually hilarious going into a Borders stores and watching the hapless clerk try to explain to a confused customer how the new program really isn't that terrible -- even though it is:

Under the old program, customers could spend $50 in a month to receive a 10% discount on all purchases on a certain day in the next month. Customers also got a 5% "Holiday Reward" on store purchases made through November 14.

Under the new plan, customers receive a $5 discount in the next month for every $150 they spend. This 3.3% discount expires at the end of of that month. Wow. What a deal.

The company's plan is to start its own website to compete with Amazon. Currently, the companies have a partnership. I can't even imagine why Borders thinks it can do online bookselling better than Amazon, and until they show that they can, I would stay far away from this stock.