Amazon Plans More Stores, Bulked-Up Prime Services
May 18 2016 - 4:20AM
Dow Jones News
Amazon.com Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos on Tuesday promised
more retail stores as well as new services for the company's Prime
unlimited shipping membership.
Mr. Bezos, who was speaking at Amazon's annual meeting for
shareholders, held court over a mostly friendly crowd of about 100
that also included employees and news media. Several shareholders
thanked Mr. Bezos for Amazon's rising stock price, which has
reached new highs in recent days.
Mr. Bezos said he wants the $99 Prime membership to offer so
many benefits that consumers will feel they "are being
irresponsible" if they aren't members. He didn't, however, indicate
exactly how Amazon plans to continue bulking up the service. The
Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the company is introducing
several lines of private-label food, cleaning products and baby
goods available only to Prime members.
Amazon also plans new brick-and-mortar stores beyond its sole
bookstore in a Seattle outdoor mall, Mr. Bezos said. The company is
constructing one near San Diego.
"We're definitely going to open additional stores, how many we
don't know yet," he said. "In these early days it's all about
learning, rather than trying to earn a lot of revenue."
The chief executive of mall operator General Growth Properties
Inc. said in February that he thought Amazon would open hundreds of
bookstores, though he backed away from the statement after reports
from the Journal and others.
At the meeting, Amazon shareholders rejected by 75% or more
three shareholder proposals that would have required the company to
disclose more information about its political contributions, its
human rights record and its environmental sustainability efforts.
The online retailer had advocated against the proposals.
But by and large Mr. Bezos didn't face very stiff questioning.
Amazon's stock reached an all-time high of $717.93 last Thursday.
In afternoon trading on Tuesday, Amazon's shares were down 1.9% to
$696.97.
To a shareholder who asked that Amazon halt selling foie gras
over concerns about animal suffering in its production, Mr. Bezos
said he has a team that monitors what the company sells and that it
is doing a great job.
Additionally, Mr. Bezos painted cheery pictures of Amazon's
Prime Now one-hour delivery service, which is available in 30
metropolitan areas world-wide; its streaming video service, which
has won awards for its original programming and converted customers
into paying Prime members; and the Amazon Web Services
cloud-computing unit.
Mr. Bezos has said the Web-services unit is on pace to reach at
least $10 billion in sales this year. The unit rents computing
power to other companies using thousands of servers around the
globe.
Though the unit is a market-share leader, Mr. Bezos said, "I
don't expect to be the only winner in cloud computing." Amazon
faces competition from Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc., among
others.
Write to Greg Bensinger at greg.bensinger@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 18, 2016 04:05 ET (08:05 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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