Amazon.com VS Overstock.com

Essay by sethstoneUniversity, Bachelor'sA+, June 2006

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Amazon.com and Overstock.com are the two companies that will be researched in detail. Their financials will be comb through and synopsis of their financial status will be developed. These two companies are within the same industry of selling discounted products online. This is a tough industry to do well in and competition is tough. The e-commerce marketplace is intensely and savagely competitive. Their financials tell the story and show how lean and mean these companies must run. This paper is going to touch on briefly on each company, what they do, where they are financially, ratios between the two and their industry, and look at their cashflow.

The first company, Amazon.com, has been in business since 1995 when Jeff Bezos started his journey of selling products on the internet. The business was developed substantially over the years and is expanding their activities beyond just the online retail sales of some limited items.

Amazon has three basic segments which are Media, Electronics, and other general merchandise. The Media segment includes retail sales from www.amazon.com of books, music and DVDs/video products and magazine subscriptions. The Electronics and other general merchandise segment includes retail sales from www.amazon.com of electronics, photo items, software, cell phones, outdoor living items, kitchen and house ware products, toys and video games.

When looking at Amazon.com's financials, they are one of the industry leaders out there and it shows. The books are audited by the Ernst Younge LLP company. When looking at Amazon's balance sheet shows current assets, liabilities and stockholders' equity. The statement included 3 years of data, which was 2003, 2004 and 2005. The assets, which are items the company owns and the numbers rose each year by nine percent. The liabilities, which is money they owe. The numbers rose each year by 10%. The stockholders' equity...