Loading...
Breadcrumb_light image

To be clear, we take these financial outputs seriously, but we believe that focusing our energy on the controllable inputs to our business is the most effective way to maximize financial outputs over time.

Related Quotes

Retail is detail, and that plays out throughout the international business as well. Today's portfolio has got omnichannel businesses in Mexico, Central America, Canada, China, but we also have an e-commerce marketplace in India with Flipkart and our financial services business in India, PhonePe - those are a bit different, but the other markets have a lot of commonality strategically.

If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you're competing against a lot of people. But if you're willingto invest on a seven-year time horizon, you're now competing against a fraction of those people... Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavors that you could never otherwise pursue. At Amazon we like things to work in five to seven years. We're willing to plant seeds, let them grow-and we're very stubborn. We say we're stubborn on vision and flexible on details.

We've done price elasticity studies, and the answer is always that we should raise prices. We don't do that because we believe, and we have to take this as an article of faith, that by keeping our prices very, very low, we earn trust with customers over time, and that actually does maximize free cash flow over the long term.

There are two ways to extend a business. Take inventory of what you're good at and extend out from your skills. Or determine what your customers need and work backward, even if it requires learning new skills. Kindle is an example of working backward.

I think that people that shop Walmart frequently and love the brand the most find it very natural to come to us first for e-commerce. But for others that may shop around or not have chosen to shop at Walmart in the past, you get what you earn, and our opportunity to earn their business starts with winning their grocery and consumables basket.

When everyone is looking for gold, it's a good time to be in the pick and shovel business.