And remember that it's journalism that keeps the Clues coming. I should really go with my gut. My shock at CDNow's overtaking Amazon in shopping revenues for January disguised the fact they never figured out how to turn a profit on sales. Now the piper must be paid . It's time some analysts learned to read a balance sheet.
Losses are OK if they can be quickly adjusted.
The key is the gross margin - the difference between your cost to deliver a product and the money you get for it. It's easy to buy market share by shaving that figure to the point of hairlessness but eventually reality catches up with every story. Amazon has gross margins - its losses stem from capital investment. The question is when will fashions change, forcing Amazon to deliver earnings. I don't know, but they're not sleepwalking in Seattle.