Amazon had it's "best season ever." (results from Macy's 2008 holiday season results have yet to be released) But make no doubt about it. Macy's is in trouble. Sure, they just negotiated looser terms on its $2 billion in currently unused bank loans, but...There's about $950 million of debt coming due in 2009 and the company still has $226 million of debt maturing in 2010, $650 million coming due in 2011 and $1.3 billion payable in 2012, along with its bank line of revolving credit.
So the "paradigm shift" I've been blogging about for months, could, in this case, be called a "parade-igm" shift.
Will we see the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade shift into the Amazon or Costco Day parade? Don't be "amazed" when/if they put Amaz-on it.
Consider the following press release from Amazon on it's "best ever" holiday season...
(SEATTLE) — Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. called this holiday season its "best ever," saying Friday that it saw a 17 percent increase in orders on its busiest day — a rare piece of good news in a season that has been far from merry for most retailers, including online businesses.
Amazon customers ordered more than 6.3 million items on Dec. 15, compared with roughly 5.4 million on its peak day last year, the company said. It shipped more than 5.6 million products on its best day, a 44 percent surge over 2007, when it shipped about 3.9 million on its busiest day.
Amazon's best-sellers included the Nintendo Wii game console, Samsung's 52-inch LCD HDTV and Apple Inc.'s iPod touch.
Analysts agreed Amazon's report was good news for the online shopping giant, but they were divided over whether the results indicate strength in online commerce in general.
Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said Amazon's experience shows the current economy is favoring discount retailers, both online and offline. "The Amazon story doesn't surprise me because Amazon has always traditionally been a leader on price, and they're one of the first places consumers go when they're looking for things online," Mulpuru said. "In many ways they're like the Wal-Mart of the online world."
Holiday sales typically account for 30 percent to 50 percent of a retailer's annual total, but rising unemployment, home foreclosures, the stock market decline and other economic worries led many shoppers to slash their shopping budgets this year.
SpendingPulse — a division of MasterCard Advisors — said its preliminary data show that online sales fell 2.3 percent compared with the 2007 holiday season, while retail sales overall fell 5.5 percent to 8 percent, including sales of cars and gasoline. The decline was 2 percent to 4 percent when auto and gas sales are excluded.
Online shopping may have gotten a boost from winter storms during last two weeks before Christmas, which made travel to brick-and-mortar stores more difficult.
And, although Amazon's orders rose, the company didn't say whether orders were, on average, worth more or less than last year. Spokeswoman Sally Fouts said the company would release revenue results in its fourth-quarter earnings report, due in about a month.
But she said this was Amazon's "best season ever."
Orders to Amazon on the peak day of its holiday season have jumped in the double-digit percentage range for at least the past 5 years, according to data released by the Seattle, Wash.-based company since 2002. Last year, Amazon's orders spiked 35 percent to 5.4 million at their peak, from 4 million in 2006.
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