Amazon's not making a profit on Harry Potter?

[icarus]

Amazon.com tells its shareholders it's not going to make a profit on the next Harry Potter book.

With their steep discounts, guaranteed delivery and free shipping, they're not going to make a profit on the biggest thing to hit publishing in the last ten years?

Good lord. These guys are as stupid as when I worked for them almost a decade ago. But hey, they are "cementing customer loyalty."

Hello? Customers will be just as loyal if you make a profit.



(Knowing them they just miscalculated the costs and now are trying to cover their collective asses. The place is run by teenagers.)


ETA: In other news, now have 838 more words of Out Of Bounds. And counting.

Comments

[aerynvala.livejournal.com]

LOL re: your small print

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It's the only office I've ever worked that was so disorganized, they had a term for sitting and doing nothing while they got their acts together. It was called "camping out."

[aerynvala.livejournal.com]

*snort* that's pretty bad if they actually had it happen often enough to make a term up for it :)

[fer-de-lance.livejournal.com]

...No wonder they had to switch from being a bookstore to being a giant Internet Walmart. If they can't figure out how to make a profit from HP, I'm not surprised they had to make up their figures in electronics and other useless junk.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

It was crazy when they did that. Granted, I only worked for them on a temp assignment but jeeze. Toys everywhere.

[auburnnothenna.livejournal.com]

ETA: In other news, now have 838 more words of Out Of Bounds. And counting.

Bwah! I laugh and point at your word count. Then I think, Damn, I can't pester her now. Not when she's working on her own fic. You better be writing lots and lots of sex in that story after inciting me to write so much in Seven Walls. They got their 'honeymoon' thanks to you.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Hey, I have an outline and a beta lined up for your story. I post one part of Out Of Bounds tonight, and then I go write Seven Walls fic. That's my weekend project. *g*

Bwah! I laugh and point at your word count.

Heh. It was 1,600 words before I cut that whole section and moved it to later. *sighs in disappointment* And now I have to write athletic skating stuff when I want to write sex.

They got their 'honeymoon' thanks to you.

Oh, fuckin' great! I don't suppose I could, um, for the sake of the upcoming fic and for inspiration and, uh... *looks hopeful*

[auburnnothenna.livejournal.com]

It's up, it's posted, beta-ed and so forth. Uhm, here, linky:
Flight (http://www.eternalvox.net/~auburn/citysevenwalls.html#Flight)

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

*splutter-gasps!* Wha-what?

Oh, crap, I was going to have your story done by the time you posted Flight.

*abandons Out Of Bounds to go read*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Damn it. You had Teyla take responsibility for the marine, I don't remember her doing that before, shit. Okay, this screws with my outline, big-time.

Argh. And John reveals how long Garner's been down there. I'd forgotten that. *heavy sigh*

[auburnnothenna.livejournal.com]

Ooops, sorry. But, eh, better to find out now than after you've written a thousand words going the wrong direction.
Teyla genuinely feels she killed Purdy, because he was dying from what she did. Rodney feels he killed him.John, of course, blames himself, because the escape happened because of him, so all collateral damage accrues to his karmic balance.

Just because John tells them how long Garner was down there doesn't mean they accept that. And, hey, the earlier nature of his 'attack' on Garner could be used as an argument that they were secretly planning the great escape all along and it didn't happen because of the disposition from the SGC.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I can work with all of it.

And Auburn. Thank you for the honeymoon. I say no more to avoid spoilers in this comment, just, wonderful.

Icarus

[skuf.livejournal.com]

That's negative now?? No, don't answer.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Good for us but... painful to watch.

[kerri]

Wait, what? Okay, so I'm all for me not having to pay as much for what I buy, of course, but considering that they are going to be selling millions of copies, even a dollar of profit per book would serve them well, and not make me too worried, buying the book. *shakes head*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Apparently no one's making money off of it. In the desperate bid to attract customers they're all slashing prices and offering deals on shipping. Amazing.

[helkamaria.livejournal.com]

Pretty much none of the sellers are (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/05/13/ccpotter13.xml).

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Oh, fascinating. Thank you for that. It explains a lot.

[helkamaria.livejournal.com]

I'm feeling kinda resentful over here. I have to pay 27.90 euros for it, which is over 37 dollars. Guess there isn't all that much competition, or market for the English version for that matter, over here.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

You can't just order it from Amazon.com.uk and have it shipped to you? Or is it the shipping charges that are ridiculous?

[helkamaria.livejournal.com]

Yeah, adding shipping charges and VAT to the price of the book means that if I ordered it from Amazon.co.uk, which sells DH for about the same price as Amazon.com, I'd have to pay around 22 euros for it. The difference is small enough that I'd rather buy DH from my local bookshop and get it the day it's published rather than wait for several days. I'm enough of a HP whore to want to do that. :-)

[quivo.livejournal.com]

You worked for Amazon as an intern? I wonder if they've changed at all - this announcement certainly doesn't make it seem likely XD

They're SERIOUSLY not going to make a profit on DH? Maaan.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

As a temp, actually. It was... memorable. *g*

[quivo.livejournal.com]

It was... memorable.

Well, well, well. *crosses Amazon.com off her might-want-to-work-there list*

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Well, it depends on what you want.

It's a fun Willy Wonka-esque place to work, but it's a kindergarten and probably the most unprofessional I've ever encountered. Their techies really are some of them best I've encountered and are on the ball. But the rest of place ... I've never seen anything like it. It reminds me over every movie I've ever seen where the kids take over the world and the adults have to fumble through, bemused, as the business deals involve things like "ice cream sundaes" and "longer recesses."

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Wow. Typo city.

Let's try this again.

"Well, it depends on what you want.

It's a fun Willy Wonka-esque place to work, but it's a kindergarten and probably the most unprofessional I've ever encountered. Their techies really are some of the best I've encountered and are on the ball. But the rest of place ... I've never seen anything like it. It reminds me of every movie I've ever seen where the kids take over the world and the adults have to fumble through, bemused, as the business deals involve things like "ice cream sundaes" and "longer recesses."

There. That's better.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

A kindergarten, you say? That's even worse, I think. Where I work right now is full of fun-loving people that are also professional and courteous. I don't think I'd like to exchange that for a kindergarten or childlike atmosphere. I might try for an interview anyway just for kicks, but that's probably about as far as I'd go. I wouldn't want them treating any immigration or visa issues like they apparently treat their business deals.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Let me tell you the tale.

I was offered a ridiculous pay rate as a temp. I showed up (on time) and found myself in a waiting area of that former hospital on Beacon Hill. They had the oddest unfinished wood desks made of 2x4s and plywood (they'd just moved in). There several adult business people waiting politely. A woman scheduled for an interview. Several suppliers.

There were two college girls at the two desks. They ignored us completely as they chatted and argued over what music to play, and we were alternately blasted with hard rock/punk (the girl with the nose ring) and jazz (the girl in the sweater set). They made no attempt to find out why we were there or to contact the persons in charge of us. Attempts to ask them to do work felt like an imposition.

I waited 15... 20... 30 minutes. Finally, I asked the girl in the sweater set if she could contact such-and-so whom I was supposed to be working for.

Neither of the two knew who this was. Apparently they had no employee lists either. With an exasperated sigh they attempted to locate the person in question (I exchanged an amused look with some of the other adults), suggesting I had the wrong name. Possibly, I said, in which case the temp agency sent me to the wrong person. Do you have anyone in HR? They said, good idea, and contacted HR. And got voicemail.

15 minutes later... HR knew nothing about me. They didn't know the person in question either. The girls shrugged and told me that my contact would just "show up sooner or later."

An hour went by.

In the meantime I was treated to the cavalcade of Amazon.com. A rush of employees came in at 10am with the careless manner of college students. The suppliers (who'd been waiting longer than me) finally met with a girl who was no more than 24 years old, a manager, breathlessly apologetic. They looked amused. The interviewee was early for her appointment but now it was well after and, yes, no show there either. She took it well, feeling that if they sucked this badly they really did need someone with experience. We joked about Amazon.com's hiring practice of requesting SAT scores from adults.

An hour and a half went by. The interviewee went to her appointment feeling very confident.

Finally, I returned to the desk, feeling as though I didn't want to interrupt the girls' conversation, however, I was on the clock and I didn't think Amazon wanted to pay me to sit in the waiting room.

They called HR, who still didn't know who I was, but finally a young harried-looking someone showed up. I no longer quite remember the excuse. She'd forgotten I was coming today? She'd meant to postpone the assignment but forgot to call yesterday?

"Anyhow, we're not ready for you, so why don't you camp out?" I was set in front of a computer and paid to dink around on the internet all morning.

Meanwhile, tech support had a log-in for me within in ten minutes.

Eventually after doing this long enough to feel guilty about it, I hunted down the young manager and suggested that she might have something for me to do in the interim. I, uh, had to wend my way through the toys, and there was a golden retriever wandering the halls looking as aimless as I felt.

I won't go into the rest of the story, but suffice it to say that I spent three-fifths of my time there playing on the internet, one-fifth doing low level work that I milked out of them, then the last fifth doing part of the job I was hired to do which they rushed to me in a panic -- and for which they paid me overtime because it was so late. In the end they ran out of money in the budget for a temp and ended up doing most of the work themselves.

I was very relaxed after that job, but... man.

[quivo.livejournal.com]

*whistles* Daaaaaaam. Just...damn.

Yeah, I'm never ever working for them. The people I currently work for maight not even pay as well, but they seem to have the amazing capability of having fun and being fairly relaxed at work when they can while still delivering great service to their customers.

From your experience, I think Amazon.com's techies are the firm foundation the company's built upon. And since I've no desire to be a techie for anybody...well. I've only a limited time to grab as much useful experience as possible, and what you just described sounds like the least useful bit of experience ever - nice for slapping on a resume as a talking point, but useless if you want to be able to gain new skills that you'll actually use in the future.

XD And to think I read through their careers section and thought it might be hard to get in. And, um, SAT scores?

Man, indeed.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Bear in mind that this was 1999, so everything could have changed since them.

Maybe.

:D

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

There's been buzz about this for months--pretty much none of the bookstores are making a profit off of HP. Since everyone knows it will sell, all of the chains have been heavily discounting to attract customers, to the point where they're no longer making a profit.

I find this all highly amusing, but it makes a certain amount of sense. Harry Potter is a sure thing, and book publishing almost never has sure things. Makes sense that the business model doesn't really work on something everyone knows will sell.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Now that's making more sense. The competition's so steep no one can make a profit, so HP has become the publishing version of a loss leader.

[droolfangrrl.livejournal.com]

Re: Out of Bounds, You go girl!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Moving right along.

[jaig.livejournal.com]

I'm sure people will be canceling their orders when it goes up five dollars!

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

Apparently everyone else is slashing their prices so the profits have been driven to nonexistence.

That's amazing.

[jaig.livejournal.com]

It's like watching a civilization implode and knowing exactly why.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I like the evil glee of your tone there. *laughs, or was that a cackle?*

[jaig.livejournal.com]

*hums* It's rather their fault, and glaringly so, and Amazon apparently started the whole slashing prices thing, which meant everyone else did to stay competitive, so it's... their fault.