Publication

Online shopping: why its unstoppable growth may be coming to an end

2019

Abstract

Many people probably assume that online stores are making a fortune, without all the costly bricks and mortar. But the reality is rather different. Many ecommerce activities are, in fact, unprofitable; if people had to pay the true cost of what they bought online, they would probably buy less. In fact, we think there is an inflection point approaching, when consumers will either have to pay more for online purchases or end up with fewer products and services to choose from. What goes up … Bogdan Vija  Let's start with the online retail leviathan Amazon, which chalked up record profits and revenues in 2018. This is great news for Amazon shareholders, but deeper scrutiny reveals a different picture. To begin with, most of the profit was not from retail activities. Amazon Web Services, a cloud-hosting business unrelated to ecommerce, generated more operating income than the company's entire North American retail operation-and with margins over five times higher. Even then, this was a much better performance from the retail division than in 2017, when the North American operating income was completely offset by international retail losses. In that year, Amazon's positive operating income was entirely thanks to the cloud-hosting business.

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/ee3a1b58-1dee-467b-80df-5576cc9db421

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2019

Abstract

Official source

https://infoscience.epfl.ch/entities/publication/ee3a1b58-1dee-467b-80df-5576cc9db421

About this result

Related concepts (31)

Online shopping

Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the retailer directly or by searching among alternative vendors using a shopping search engine, which displays the same product's availability and pricing at different e-retailers. As of 2020, customers can shop online using a range of different computers and devices, including desktop computers, laptops, tablet computers and smartphones.

Amazon (company)

Amazon.com, Inc. (ˈæməzɒn , Ukalsoˈæməzən ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been often referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world," and is often regarded as one of the world's most valuable brands. It is considered to be one of the Big Five American technology companies, alongside Alphabet (parent company of Google), Apple, Meta (formerly Facebook, Inc.

Retail

Retail is the sale of goods and services to consumers, in contrast to wholesaling, which is sale to business or institutional customers. A retailer purchases goods in large quantities from manufacturers, directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells in smaller quantities to consumers for a profit. Retailers are the final link in the supply chain from producers to consumers. Retail markets and shops have a very ancient history, dating back to antiquity. Some of the earliest retailers were itinerant peddlers.