[andrewfong]

Saying Amazon is absorbing a loss on shipping costs to get market share implies that that they're engaged in predatory pricing (i.e. they're selling below cost to get market share with the intent to raise prices once competition has been destroyed).

There might be some truth to that, but the better explanation for why Amazon isn't profitable is that it's simply plowing all of its profits back into the business. This link is older, but it does a pretty good job of going through the numbers and Jeff Bezo's thinking: http://a16z.com/2014/09/05/why-amazon-has-no-profits-and-why...

[nitrogen]

It's not uncommon for an ecommerce site to charge less for shipping than it actually costs them (for perception/psychology reasons), and make up the difference on margin or services.

[unclebucknasty]

Is there anyone who believes Amazon's prices wouldn't rise in the absence of competition?