Can Amazon Have A $25 Billion Holiday Quarter?
November 30, 2013 by Douglas A. McIntyre
In the last quarter, Amazon’s revenue rose 22% to $17.09 billion. Its forecast for the holiday season?
Net sales are expected to be between $23.5 billion and $26.5 billion, or to grow between 10% and 25% compared with fourth quarter 2012.
At that level, Amazon’s sale for the quarter would probably pass Target’s (NYSE: TGT), which has 1,800 stores in the U.S., and is considered the second largest bricks-and-mortar retailer in the country.
Amazon has decided to do rapid fire promotions to draw consumers from the Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales of its competition. But, the core of its holiday success will fall on Cyber Monday, the date on which online sales generally peak during the holiday season. Amazon has already started to use the leverage that comes with having over 100 million monthly visitors, via promotions which could only work online. At the heart of that is a rotation of product sales which changes every ten minutes:
Starting at midnight on Sunday, Dec. 1, Amazon.com will open its Cyber Monday Deals Store with new deals as often as every ten minutes, including 50% off select top toys and 50% off a 46-inch Samsung LED HDTV. Shoppers can find seven days of savings this year filled with hundreds of deals each day including items eligible for Free Shipping and Prime Free Two-Day Shipping.
Amazon’s second large advantage is the Kindle, as it has been for several years. The popular DX model is being pushed via a heavily advertised discount–its price has been dropped from $239 to $169. The Kindle remains the front line product in Amazon’s attempt to corner the market on e-books and take streaming media customers away from its competition–mainly Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX).
A $25 billion quarter? Happy holidays at Amazon.
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