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• Should Amazon buy Borders?

  Posted Jun 12 2008, 12:02 PM by Kim Peterson
  Filed under: Amazon, Retail, Borders

  

  A major Borders shareholder wants the company to sell itself to Amazon. And when a guy like William Ackerman talks, Borders is going to at least listen carefully. Trouble is, Ackerman's pitch falls flat. Borders shares are up 3% on the news today to $6.94.
  

  Ackerman is the billionaire founder of a hedge fund that owns about 30% of Borders. He thinks Amazon could use a physical presence across the country (Borders has 500 stores). It would cost Amazon more than $1 billion to build those stores on its own, but it could buy Borders for $400 million, Ackerman said. 

  If Amazon wanted to open stores, it would have done so a long time ago. But Ackerman says that life's about to change for Amazon in a way that might make Borders more attractive.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 3 comments) 4,167 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Apple's fast climb to top music seller

  Posted Apr 03 2008, 12:32 PM by Kim Peterson
  Filed under: Apple, Amazon, Retail, Kim Peterson
  Rating:

  Apple has become the top music seller in the U.S. The company made the announcement today after Ars Technica leaked an internal e-mail with details. Just a couple of months ago, Apple passed Best Buy to become the #2 music retailer. Now, the company is topping the charts.

  Apple had 19% of the market in January, and Wal-Mart was in second place with 15%, according to the leaked e-mail. It's worth noting an obvious difference between the two: Apple is an all-digital music seller, while most of Wal-Mart's sales are physical CDs. Best Buy, Amazon and Target rounded out the top five spots. Some tech blogs thought that January's numbers were skewed due to people redeeming iTunes gift cards recieved over the holidays. But it looks like Apple stayed on top in February as well.

  Shares of the company rose nearly 3% today to close at $151.61. Here's what others had to say about the news:   Read More...

  Discuss ( 72 comments) 35,564 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this

• Cyber Monday's surprise winner

  Posted Nov 28 2007, 11:40 AM by Robert Walberg
  Filed under: Internet, Amazon, Retail, FedEx, Blue Nile, Wal-Mart
  Rating:

  

  Now that the dust has settled back on our keyboards, which company was the big winner of Cyber Monday?  Was it a) Amazon with its new Kindle, b) Wal-Mart with its cheap big-screen TVs, c) Blue Nile with its sparkling diamonds, or d) none of the above? 

  If you guessed "d" then you are today's winner.  While anecdotal evidence suggests that each of the highlighted retailers fared reasonably well on Monday, the real winner of Cyber Monday was FedEx. 

  Internet sales totalled a whopping $733 million Monday, an impressive 21% jump over the year-ago total.  But to jack up sales so significantly at a time when consumer confidence is in the toilet required some serious effort -- and by effort I mean discounting prices.  Sales were everywhere online Monday, and that's why I'm not as excited by the retailers as I am by FedEx.  You see slashing prices might jumpstart sales, but it does so at the cost of lowering margins. Lower margins mean slow to no profit growth, and it's earnings growth that ultimately drives stock prices.   Read More...

  Discuss ( 26 comments) 45,970 Views Digg this | Email this | Link to this