Amazon Investors Are Panicky. Stores Aren’t the Answer.
Another brick-and-mortar experiment isn’t going to ease shareholders’ concerns about e-commerce sales or cloud competition.
Brick and mortar hasn’t worked yet.
Photographer: David Ryder/Getty Images
It has been a rough few weeks for Amazon.com Inc. shareholders. Since the company’s disappointing July earnings report, its share price has fallen by a double-digit percentage and its market value has dropped by a couple hundred billion dollars. Investors are worried about slowing e-commerce sales growth and profitability pressures at its key Amazon Web Services cloud-computing unit. And the benefit of the doubt that shareholders granted founder Jeff Bezos for so many years has apparently started to vanish now that he’s off to other adventures.
So what is the internet giant looking to do next to get its business back on track? Expand more into physical stores. Really?