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

To: Rob S. who wrote (102308)	4/27/2000 8:29:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Glenn, I admire your tenacity. I pretty much gave up on trying to argue that AMZN and others will not make enough money to justify lofty expectations - if they make any at all. Rob, Thank you I think. I admit to having a person obcession in proving my theory on the business model from years ago. I am only a bystander now and never will an AMZN postion long short or otherwise. I have gone to the trouble to archive all the analyst''s reports on Amazon, news storys etc. strictly so I can see how the predictions compare to actual facts. It is too bad that the regulators to not reqire analysts to have some obligation if just an explanation when they make a prediction that turns out to be entirely incorrect. Forcasting the future of any business is a difficult task at pbest so a financial penalty to analyst being in error would not be appropriate. However, I do believe and explanation of why their model failed would a nice requirement even if it is as short as management did poor execution. The IBM and other studies (my own included) theorized a few years ago that etail business would be particularly price competitive and that the relatively high costs of operations vs. ease of shopping around would inevitably lead to "razor thin" margins. Yes this is more prevelent now that comparisons are even easier on the net. My intital reaction having experience as a retailer indicated decent margins would never come to pass. There were never decent margins in retail prior to the e-commerce side. The consumer, on average, is not dumb. They want the best value for their money and they are entitled to it. Sometimes the best value is not the lowest price but rather a service of the retailer may have value too such as educating the consumer, helping in making a decision, etc. If there was no value added by the retailer, all manufacturers would be selling direct. It is becominbg more clear that a computer database of products with almost no human interaction has less value added that human interaction. The Analysts continue to forcast that margins for pure e-commerce plays will be greater than that for traditional stores at least, net margins. If my assumption is correct that e-commerce sites offer very little service, then the on-line shopping will be strictly price sensitive forever. I doubt that will change. Glenn