>There are so many negatives now. In the past, the street ignored all negative and only looked at potential.
Glenn, according to Bezos the potential for Amzn in Europe is enormous.
Now, you'll have to sit on the edge of your seat for another couple of years waiting to see if Bezos can make it in Europe.;-O
>Reno, Nevada, Sept. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos said Internet retailers may find it easier to prosper in Europe than in the U.S., in part because traditional merchants in the region face more constraints.
Costly real estate and limited business hours at bricks-and- mortar chains give online retailers an advantage, said Bezos, who founded Seattle-based Amazon.com in 1994. Also, dense populations in Germany and other parts of Europe have made overnight shipping in the region more common, he said.
``The fact that stores have to be closed on Sunday, or that stores have to be closed at 6 p.m. -- that's a great thing for us,'' Bezos said at a meeting with analysts that was broadcast over the Internet. ``It will turn out long term that the U.S. is the worst country for e-commerce.''
Amazon.com expects to take less time to reach profitability in Europe than in the U.S., said Diego Piacentini, senior vice president and general manager for international operations.
The unprofitable company, which has Web sites geared toward shoppers in the U.K., France and Germany, plus three warehouses in the region, is centralizing customer service, finance and other tasks to keep a lid on costs, the executives said.
``We do have a great chance to be profitable in an early stage if you compare relative to the U.S.,'' Piacentini said.
In the first half of the year, the international division had a loss of $61.9 million on sales of $148.5 million.
Amazon.com shares fell 2.17 to 40.75. The shares have declined 47 percent this year.
At the analyst meeting, which was held in Reno, Nevada, Amazon.com executives said that electronics and technology products are the second-biggest selling items after books this month.
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SEATTLE, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Internet retailer Amazon.com Inc. <AMZN.O>, its shares battered by concerns over whether it will ever turn a profit, on Tuesday tried to reassure investors that its strategy will eventually pay off big.
Repeating earlier promises to make money in each of its product lines, Amazon executives defended its much-maligned business model before Wall Street analysts who have grown increasingly frustrated with the money-losing company.
Speaking at an investor conference in Reno, Nevada, Amazon's top brass, including founder and Chief Executive Jeff Bezos, also touted ambitious overseas plans, saying the United States, which now leads the world in buying over the Internet, was actually the worst country for online retailing.
"When you think about our model, the model today is driving efficiency and is working," Amazon Chief Financial Officer Warren Jensen told the audience, in remarks also broadcast over the Internet.
"When you think about our performance ... (our goal is) not just to be good and outpace that of the physical world, but to stretch the boundaries of our model and go for things that really haven't been done in this sort of industry before," Jensen said.
Outlining earlier benchmarks, Jensen said Amazon was aiming to boost operating margins into the double digits from the current loss-making performance.
"Our long-term objective remains the same, that is, generating triple-digit returns on invested capital," Jensen said. Amazon has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build distribution centers and maintain its Web site, which now serves 24 million customers.
But Jensen's words failed to bolster Amazon's stock, which dipped after the company on Monday said it would not renew its contract as a preferred merchant of popular Internet portal Yahoo! Inc. <YHOO.O>.
Amazon shares fell $2-1/16, or almost 5 percent, to $40-3/4 in Nasdaq trading. The stock has tumbled from a year high of $113 set last December, but has recovered almost 50 percent from its year low of $27-7/8 touched in July.
Amazon rival Barnesandnoble.com Inc. <BNBN.O> took Amazon's place on Yahoo, which sent the bookseller's stock soaring 30 percent to $5-15/16. Amazon said it decided not to renew the deal in order to pursue more opportunities with leading Internet service provider America Online Inc. <AOL.N>.
Seattle-based Amazon's stock has been extremely volatile for months as increasingly impatient analysts have questioned the wisdom of its breakneck expansion from books and CDs into products like patio furniture and cars.
Amazon, seen as a bellwether for the entire online retail sector, saw its losses grow 40 percent to $115 million in its second quarter, though revenues climbed 84 percent to $578 million in the three-month period.
Bezos said he sees a bright future for Amazon in Europe, even better than in its home market.
Amazon operates Web sites in Britain, France and Germany, where denser populations and shorter delivery distances create an ideal market for Internet sales, Bezos said.
By contrast, the sprawling geography of the United States meant standard delivery times of several days, compared to overnight in much of Europe, Bezos said.
"It will turn out in the long term that the U.S. is the worst country for e-commerce," Bezos said.
Amazon also played down the future of wireless shopping in Europe, where a unified standard for mobile telephones has helped wireless e-mail and Web browsing take off much faster than in the United States, which is still wrangling with competing technologies.
"People are overestimating the role of wireless in Europe in terms of buying. Buying online through a wireless telephone is picking up, but picking up very, very slowly," said Diego Piacentini, Amazon vice president for international operations.
Piacentini declined to give details of Amazon's plans in Japan, which has no local Japanese language Web site, but is already the top export market for Amazon's U.S. operations.
19:58 09-19-00 |
