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San Antonio — The Progressive Retailers Organization was at the Westin La Cantera Hill Coun
Seattle – Continued investments in content and the impact of unfavorable foreign exchange rates let to a sharp drop in Amazon.com’s first-quarter earnings.
Net income fell 37 percent to $82 million for the three months, ended March 31, while net sales climbed 22 percent to $16 billion. A $302 million impact from unfavorable exchange rates shaved 2 percentage points from the sales tally.
Operating income slipped 6 percent to $181 million, reflecting a $12 million hit from the currency fluctuations.
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Apple may still not be ready to launch its long-anticipated and speculated-on iTV, but that’s apparently not stopping a couple of other industry giants from moving forward with ambitious online video streaming entertainment devices.
Waban, Mass. — Sam’s Club and Amazon.com provide the best customer experience in retail, a survey of 10,000 shoppers revealed.
Conversely, RadioShack came in last place among retailers for the third consecutive year; T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T carrier stores were deemed only marginally better; and Best Buy, Walmart and, surprisingly, Apple Stores were given middling ratings of just “OK,” according to the online poll, conducted in January by The Temkin Group.
Seattle — Amazon is pumping up tablet competition by dropping the prices of its Kindle Fire HD 8.9 tablet by $30 for the Wi-Fi version and by $100 for the 4G version.
Both versions became available in the U.S. late last year. Amazon cited the economies of scale that will accrue now that it has opened up distribution to Europe and Japan.
While there’s no question that Amazon.com is siphoning off sales from physical stores, retailers’ biggest competitors still remain … other retailers.
A recent survey of 1,000 consumers by market research firm ClickIQ showed that Amazon isn’t always the biggest beneficiary of showrooming, and that Best Buy isn’t the only big-box chain facing the phenomenon.
New York — CBS and Amazon.com have expanded a content-licensing agreement to bring classic series and TV shows from CBS Television Distribution and Showtime Networks to Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service, the companies said Wednesday.
Amazon Prime members will be able to instantly stream the content at no additional cost to the annual membership fee.
Seattle — Ford vehicles equipped with OEM Sync systems can now access Amazon’s Cloud Player through a wirelessly connected Android smartphone running the Amazon MP3 app.
The app is now AppLink-enabled for Ford Sync voice-control systems, letting users access their Cloud-stored music via the factory sound system’s controls or via Sync’s voice control. The app also lets users play back music stored on an Android phone through the stock sound system.
New York – Amazon.com was cited as America’s most reputable company in a Harris Interactive poll of 14,000 consumers.
Amazon earned the top-spot for the first time in the annual survey, which measures consumer perceptions of the 60 most visible U.S. companies.
Amazon edged out last year’s leader, Apple, which came in second place followed by The Walt Disney Co., Google and Johnson & Johnson. It was Google’s eighth consecutive appearance on the Top 5.
Ann Arbor, Mich. — Amazon.com has extended its vaunted customer service model to mobile shopping as well.
According to a holiday survey of 6,200 mobile shoppers by market research firm ForeSee, Amazon topped a list of 25 m-commerce sites in customer satisfaction.
The brainchild of Jeff Bezos led the pack with a customer satisfaction score of 85 on a 100-point scale, edging out Apple (83) and beating Newegg (80) in the CE channel.
The satisfaction score is comprised of four components: price, merchandise selection, app and site functionality, and content.
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