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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Donahoe who wrote (69454)	7/25/1999 2:32:00 PM
From: atlast	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

amzn should rise on drugstore.com ipo - coming up this week (thursday?) amzn owns almost half of drugstore.com - i expect the ipo to do extremely well - etoys ended it's first day with a market cap of 8 bil - if drugstore.com can do as well or better - amzn is due for a quick rise - and this may be the first of many ipo's that amzn has a stake in - just a thought

To: John Donahoe who wrote (69454)	7/25/1999 2:46:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

RE: I believe this definition to be inaccurate. A commodity is a product that is [easily and with minimal risk] interchangeable . The amount of competition is irrelevant. If you edit your definition per above I would agree. John, Agreed!

To: John Donahoe who wrote (69454)	7/25/1999 8:45:00 PM
From: Jeff Dryer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

A few thoughts about retailing... which is not my expertise : ) Will Amazon.com sell exclusive merchandise... items not available for sale anywhere else? I believe the answer is no. Therefore, every item Amazon.com sells will be offered for sale by other retailers. Retailers must compete on brand name, customer service, product selection, unique shopping experience, points of distribution, and price. 1. Amazon.com is a leading brand name on the Web and has the potential to be one of the top 20 brands in the World on-line or off-line. 2. Amazon.com has the best customer service of any retail site on the Web (maybe better than everyone's benchmark, Dell Computer). 3. One stop shopping possibility. Two years from now, it is quite possible that Amazon.com will be able to offer a selection of merchandise comparable to Wal-Mart. 4. Amazon.com currently offers the Web's best shopping experience. Amazon.com has the best functioning site on the Web... with continual user interface enhancements, Amazon.com can probably stay ahead of the competition. 5. Points of Distribution Amazon.com is losing lots of money now because it has to spend on advertising. While Barnes & Noble and eToys are spending heavily to be accessible via AOL, Amazon.com is spending lots of ad dollars on Yahoo and elsewhere. I think it's likely the ad spending game will only escalate. What happens if Wal-Mart decides to spend $1 billion dollars over the next 2 years to be featured on every major Portal? Wal-Mart might even try to negotiate exclusives to prevent Amazon.com from having an advertising presence on any of the top 100 trafficked Web sites. 6. Price competition will be a problem. Can Amazon.com realize significant scale efficiencies to be able to undercut the competition in price? If so, can Amazon.com reach a large enough scale before Wal-Mart and other proven retailers become big Internet players? Wal-Mart put the mom and pop stores out of business by offering a bigger selection and at lower prices. For Amazon.com to reach a similar power position as Wal-Mart, doesn't Amazon.com need to put companies out of business and prevent companies from entering the retail business? If Amazon.com is not able to build a barrier to entry (with brand name, customer service, selection, shopping experience, points of distribution, and low price), then price competition will make sustained profitability unlikely I would think. Amazon.com didn't put CDNow out of business. CDNow merged with N2K and then the combined entity was acquired by a larger company. Amazon.com didn't put Barnes & Noble or Borders out of business either.