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The template only earns its keep if you actually put two cases next to each other.
This is the reason every teardown answers the same questions in the same order. Put a luxury house beside a console platform and the differences stop being vibes — one is refusing sales to protect a price, the other is selling below cost to collect a toll, and both are defending a moat.
Technology · NASDAQ: AMZN
Amazon
Runs a near-breakeven retail operation at enormous scale, and earns essentially all of its profit from renting out the two things that operation forced it to build — computing capacity and shelf placement.
Technology · NASDAQ: AMZN
Amazon
Runs a near-breakeven retail operation at enormous scale, and earns essentially all of its profit from renting out the two things that operation forced it to build — computing capacity and shelf placement.
The thesis in one line
Verdict
Moat
Wide
Scale economics · Network effects · Process power · Switching costs
Wide
Scale economics · Network effects · Process power · Switching costs
Porter's five forces
Headline figures
- Net sales
- $638B
- AWS share of operating income
- ~58%
- Retail operating margin
- ~5.4%
- Third-party share of units
- ~60%
- Net sales
- $638B
- AWS share of operating income
- ~58%
- Retail operating margin
- ~5.4%
- Third-party share of units
- ~60%
Unit economics
One $50 third-party item sold through Amazon
Amazon captures roughly 38% of the sale price and carries none of the inventory risk. The seller took the risk, paid for the warehouse, and then paid again to be found in a search of Amazon's own catalogue.
One $50 third-party item sold through Amazon
Amazon captures roughly 38% of the sale price and carries none of the inventory risk. The seller took the risk, paid for the warehouse, and then paid again to be found in a search of Amazon's own catalogue.