Amazon Can Expect Good Q4 On Holiday Sales

Best Offer UK (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

We expect strong revenue growth accompanied bya slight improvement in margins as Amazon releases its Q4 2013 results on January 30. Although the retail sales during the holiday season showed mild growth, e-commerce benefited from the cold weather as buyers preferred shopping online rather than visiting stores. We expect Amazon's sales to grow faster than that of the online retail industry, due to its market leading position and supply chain efficiency. In addition, we expect some support from the continued expansion of web services, the Amazon Prime service and Kindle sales during the holiday season. The retailer stated that Kindle Fire saw strong demand during the quarter, leading to highest ever holiday sales for the device.

Our price estimate for Amazon stands at $338, implying a discount of about 15% to the market.

See our complete analysis for AmazoneBay's Results Suggest A Strong Quarter For Amazon Despite Concerns Around E-Commerce Growth

eBay's marketplaces revenues were up by 13% in the fourth quarter, roughly in line with the full-year growth. The growth sustained despite the company's warnings during its Q3 2013 earnings announcement regarding a slowdown in the U.S. e-commerce market, which materialized to some extent during the fourth quarter. While the holiday retail sales continued to grow for the fourth consecutive year, online retail sales grew by 10% during the period of November-December. This was below 14% growth forecast by comScore and 15% growth forecast by e-marketer. Some of this stemmed from the fact that retailers had to give deep discounts in order to drive sales. But the fact that eBay attained a higher growth rate than the overall market, implies that it took some share from other e-commerce retailer. This suggests that market leaders are likely to outperform the overall market. Therefore, we expect Amazon's quarterly revenue growth to remain high, and more or less in line with what we have seen in recent quarters.

Growth In Web Services And Amazon Prime To Aid EBITDA Margin

One of the risks that Amazon's stock has entailed for a long time is the company's low EBITDA margin, which makes it vulnerable to price fluctuations, supply chain disruptions and competition. However, the retailer has successfully pushed its web and cloud services in recent quarters, which is a very high margin business and will aid its profits going forward. The company defeated IBM in a bid to build a private cloud for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), and could add meaningful value to its stock if it can bag more such deals. Evercore Partners has pegged the segment's market potential at around $50 billion, which is huge given the company's current revenues mostly stem from its high margins on this business.

In addition to this, the continued expansion of Amazon Prime service will add to the bottom line. Currently, the service has more than 20 million members worldwide, which implies annualized revenues of close to $1.6 billion at membership fee of $79 per year. While the revenues earned from the Prime service account for just 2% of the company's total sales, the margins are much higher. Even if we assume Amazon earns a 30% EBITDA margin (higher than that for Netflix but still lower than that for many media companies) for its Prime service, it implies that Amazon Prime's EBITDA will amount to close to $500 million, thus accounting for nearly 10% of the company's total EBITDA. However, the importance of Amazon Prime extends beyond these numbers. According to a report, Prime customers tend to buy twice as much as the regular customers and overall accounted for 10% of the purchases in 2012. This proportion could increase going forward as Amazon continues to invest in the streaming content to lure in more buyers.

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New Checks Unlimited Coupon Code Website Launched Online

(PRWEB) January 27, 2014

Promo Codes & Promotional Codes Codes will launch a new web portal, 1discountcouponcode.com, that finally centralizes resources and information about online checks and reviews of the best online check options. Following launch, for example, 1 Discount Coupon Code will introduce a full review guide to all online checks and online check store options. For site visitors, 1discountcouponcode.com provides centralized and efficiently organized information about recent promotions and deals on top checks brands that will help readers save up to 50% on checking offers ( http://1discountcouponcode.com/checks-unlimited-a-review-of-this-top-of-the-range-personal-check-store/).

Users will also be able to quickly and easily locate the best current check offers from such established brands as Checks Unlimited, 4Checks and Deluxe ( http://1discountcouponcode.com/deluxe-checks-our-review-of-this-top-quality-personal-check-site/). In addition, site users will also be able to find articles that answer important consumer questions such as, "how to choose the best checking accessories?", "how to customize checks?", "what are good address labels?" and "which companies uses advanced security features"?

According to the CEO of 1 Discount Coupon Code, Susan Jones ( http://1discountcouponcode.com/about-me/ ), "there is so much diverse and often difficult-to-source-easily or outdated information about current check coupon codes and promo codes. Our main goal at Promo Codes & Coupon Codes is to finally centralize those resources and to offer consumers up-to-the-minute information on the latest offers...and we are delighted that major partners like Checks Unlimited have decided to join our project."

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Tanaka chooses Yankees in $155 million deal

(Reuters) - Right-hander Masahiro Tanaka has signed a seven-year, $155 million Deal News to join the New York Yankees, the team reported on Wednesday, making the Japanese ace the fifth highest paid pitcher in all of Major League Baseball.

Tanaka, who Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said had been on the team's radar for eight years, was a perfect 24-0 with the Japanese Series champion Rakuten Golden Eagles last season and regarded as one of the prize catches of the off-season.

He was reportedly pursued by a dozen major league teams, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago White Sox and Toronto Blue Jays.

But it was the big-spending Yankees, looking to return to the World Series after missing out on the post-season last year, who got his signature.

"We started evaluating him back in 2007, so clearly we have been scouting him over in Japan for quite some time," Cashman told a conference call, adding that negotiations were extremely private, "Certainly we paid close attention to him in the 2009 WBC (World Baseball Classic) where we were first able to evaluate him against major league hitters.

"He's just gotten better-and-better and it seems like the bigger the game, the more he would step up.

"In an individual game he would dial it up. The one thing that resonated consistently is the competitive side of this particular player."

The total cost of the deal was a $175 million with the Yankees also paying out a $20 million posting fee to his former-Japanese league club and includes an opt-out clause that Tanaka can exercise after the fourth year.

Tanaka will receive an annual salary of just over $22 million making him the highest paid Japanese import of all-time in MLB.

Dodgers Cy Young winning pitcher Clayton Kershaw tops the list having agreed to a massive seven-year $215 million contract last week.

"I was told, we were the highest and it was very competitive and the other teams were in the vicinity of our team," said Cashman. "It's the cost of doing business.

"When you want to acquire some of the best talent in the world, whether it is coming from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the United States or Japan, the highest talent costs a lot of money.

"The efforts of clubs to try to improve themselves creates that bidding environment that produces large contracts for rare talent."

A two-time winner of the prestigious Sawamura Award as Nippon Professional Baseball's best pitcher, Tanaka went 99-35 with 1,238 strikeouts in 175 career games over seven seasons with the Golden Eagles. His resume also includes 53 complete games and 18 shutouts.

Tanaka, an eye-catching 53-9 over the last three seasons, joins a Yankees starting rotation that includes his compatriot Hiroki Kuroda as well as CC Sabathia and Ivan Nova.

With Kuroda and Tanaka, the Yankees become the first major league team since the 2004 Dodgers to have two Japanese pitchers in their starting rotation.

"There are risks with pitchers from Japan," admitted Cashman. "The work load for starters is different, strike zones are different, lineups are different. So there is a lot of risk working through those variables.

"At some point you have to make a call.

"We obviously believe in that talent...those risks will be answered here shortly."

Tanaka played for Japan at the 2008 Beijing Olympics as well as two World Baseball Classics, winning the title in 2009.

The 25-year-old becomes the seventh player born in Japan to wear the famed Yankee pinstripes, joining Hideki Irabu (1997-99), Hideki Matsui (2003-09), Kei Igawa (2007-08), Hiroki Kuroda (2012-13), Ryota Igarashi (2012) and Ichiro Suzuki (2012-13).

The signing is the latest in another Yankees off-season spending spree that has seen the club splurge on free agents Jacoby Ellsbury and Carlos Beltran and Brian McCann.

(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto; editing by Julian Linden)

Xbox One finally gets a price cut - buy it cheap now

<On Salesp>Did you survive Christmas without buying a next gen console? This may be your cue. Zavvi.com has slashed the Xbox One's price to £409.99 - a whopping (not really) £20 off the RRP. Hopefully, it's the snowball that starts the avalanche.

The offer doesn't include a game, so you may wish to pick up a bundle instead. We posted a round-up of the best Xbox One bundles in December, which is probably rather out of date by now, but could be worth a glance. I'll update it soon.

Thanks for noticing, Videogamer.

Amazon Local deal: 25 Kindle books for 99 cents each

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Amazon Local ()

Amazon Local is offering a free coupon good for 25 Kindle downloads for 99-cents each.

Some of the books normally cost $4.99 each.

Titles offered include Kurt Vonnegut's previously unreleased "Sucker's Portfolio" (which is what got me to grab this deal), "No Place to Die" by James Thame and the entertaining Chandler series "Flee," "Three" and "Spree" by J.A. Konrath. There are cookbooks, novels and nonfiction as well. Plenty to keep you busy all winter.

Get the coupon from Amazon Local (at the link below) and the offer will automatically be applied to your Amazon account. After you get a confirmation email, download the Kindle books. Amazon says visible price will not change before purchase, but the sale price will be automatically applied to your order. (Confirm that your coupon was applied by checking your email order confirmation.)

Click here for the deal. The offer ends Feb. 8.

Like Doreen's Deals on Facebook; follow Doreen Christensen on Twitter@PrettyGoodIdeas and sign up for Deals text alerts.

Coupon Queen: Are you going 'clipless' or cutting everything?

I want to save with coupons. I read your column and know that those who Deal Now are saving a great deal of money. But I can't shake the idea of how much time it would take me to cut and carry all those coupons around. The idea of it just makes me cringe. I don't have any time to do that, but I also am not a coupon app person, as I don't use my phone for that. If I'm going to do this it will be with paper coupons. Help convince me this is something I can do without becoming one of those coupon people who everyone rolls their eyes at in the checkout. - Dina K.

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Megos given 10 days to decide on plea deal

Publication: theday.com

A New London Superior Court judge gave Norwich businessman Zane Megos what she termed the final continuance Wednesday, allowing him 10 days to decide whether to accept a plea offer on several larceny charges stemming from allegations that he took deposits for apartments in Norwich and New London that never became available.

Megos, 56, of 31 Dellwood Road, Norwich, faces six larceny charges and a related third-degree assault charge in a related incident when an alleged victim sought a refund on the deposit.

Judge Hillary B. Strackbein said the new Jan. 27 court date would be "the last day for a decision" by Megos to accept the plea offer.

During a court appearance in October, Strackbein said the plea Amazon Sales would reduce felony charges to misdemeanors and give Megos a suspended sentence.

The six larceny charges all arose from separate claims in 2012 by alleged victims that Megos took deposits for condemned or unavailable apartments or houses in Norwich and New London.

Megos was arrested again this past November by Norwich police on a charge that he violated a court order to refrain from taking new deposits after police conducted an undercover investigation.

Strackbein said the proposed resolution would not prevent Megos from "doing legitimate business" if he accepts the plea offer.