It's hard for any retailer to say they haven't in some way been hurt by the recession. But, if you were looking for a merchant that has made navigating the recession look easy, than you wouldn't have to go any further than Amazon.com.
The retailer, which continues to promote itself as the place to buy just about anything, with free shipping to boot, saw sales in the fourth quarter climb 18 percent while profits were up nine percent. The strong results took Wall Street by surprise and Amazon's stock shot up 14 percent in after-hours trading.
Tom Szkutak, chief financial officer at Amazon, told The Wall Street Journal that the retailer's discounting pulled its profit margins down but "one of the reasons that you see the growth that you do is because of the value we are providing."
Today, Amazon is in numerous categories, including books, consumer electronics, digital downloads, groceries and more.
While Amazon has had little trouble dealing with the recession, many others have not made it. The question for many is whether massive store and website closings will ultimately benefit the mammoth e-tailer.
Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, recently told analysts, "It is difficult to say what if any short term impact you might see from that (retail failures). In the long term, fortunately the markets that we operate in are very large markets and there is room for lots of winners."
Discussion Questions: What is Amazon's competitive advantage and is it sustainable?