[woeirua]

Just look at how much money Amazon is spending on Prime shipping. It's insane. They're never going to turn a profit, because as soon as they stop subsidizing shipping customers will go elsewhere. There is no reason to expect Amazon's retail arm to ever be more profitable than Walmart is.

[dx034]

Isn't the idea behind prime shipping that with enough volume, any product in demand should already be stored close to the customer? Their expanding fleet of aircrafts make me doubt that it works that well but who knows, maybe their air cargo as a percentage of all shipping is decreasing drastically.

In the end, online stores aren't that hard to build and local stores can become competitive if Amazon really decides to cash out. Amazon is growing so fast because they don't really turn a profit, not because they pushed everyone else out of the market.