Lack of data means Amazon's not an open book

[Kristijntje]

TALK to Wall Street analysts who cover the internet and one company stands out as the least transparent and most difficult to work with - and it isn't Google.

It's Amazon.com.

About 28 per cent of Amazon's unit sales volume, for example, comes not from its own shelves but from third-party sellers. That side business is very profitable, said Jim Friedland, an analyst at SG Cowen & Company. Yet Friedland can only guess how much this business contributes to the company's bottom line because Amazon does not say.

Amazon has also developed another interesting side business in providing e-commerce technology for partners like Target. The royalties earned from these activities - rough estimates, of course, in the absence of disclosure from Amazon - probably contribute significantly to profits.

Friedland says that if third-party sales and technology partnerships were stripped away and sales of Amazon's inventory considered on its own, "I wouldn't be surprised if the core business was running at break-even."...

full article: http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/lack...78988.html