Amazon.com Net Profit Slumps in 2Q

Maybe shoes will be better sellers than books, CDs, online downloads and DVDs: Just one day after announcing its purchase of online apparel and footwear seller Zappos.com, Amazon.com posted less-than-stellar second-quarter financial results.

The e-commerce site posted a 14% gain in revenue, to $4.65 billion, but its net profit of $142 million, or 32 cents per share, was down 10% from its second-quarter-2008 figure of $158 million (37 cents).

Amazon.com blamed a steep decline in its traditional business, as well as a $51 million legal settlement to Toys “R” Us. Video-game and console sales also slumped.

Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay told The New York Times, “People had looked at their recent performance and assumed that Amazon was, relatively speaking, exempt from the current downturn,” adding that the company’s second-quarter results were “by any measure a good performance, but expectations had gotten ahead of themselves.”

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