California Apparel News

Amazon.com, Inc. released results for its second financial quarter, which ended June 30, and some said that the results were mixed for the Seattle-headquartered retail behemoth.

Net sales increased 20 percent, to $63.4 billion compared to $52.9 billion in the same quarter the previous year.

Amazon’s second quarter fell in line with revenue forecasts. Its original guidance for net sales for the second quarter ranged between $59.5 billion to $63.5 billion.

However, Amazon did not meet profit expectations, and its stock, traded under AMZN on the Nasdaq, declined 2 percent because of the miss, according to MarketWatch.

The stock dip did not cut into Amazon’s ambition. The company is striving to slash shipping times to one day for its Amazon Prime club members. It had promised to spend $800 million in the second quarter to improve warehouses and delivery infrastructures. During a July 25 conference call, Amazon Chief Operating Officer Brian Olsavsky, said that this spending has cut into profits.

“It does create a shock to the system,” he said. He forecast that the cost of building infrastructures for one-day delivery would affect Amazon finances for a few quarters but it would eventually bring profits to the company.

The second-quarter results did not include revenue from Prime Day 2019, which ran July 15–16. Amazon called the 36-hour sales event the largest shopping event in Amazon history. Sales surpassed business for Amazon’s previous sales on Black Friday and Cyber Monday combined, according to a company statement.

Also in Amazon’s second-quarter statement, the retail giant discussed new angles in its fashion offerings. In March, it introduced The Drop. It’s a series of limited-edition fashion collections, which are designed with influencers and are sold on Amazon.com for limited periods of time.

It also is expanding its convenience store, Amazon Go, which opened two stores in New York City in the second quarter, bringing its store count to 13 locations across the United States.