WebProNews

Category: Retail & eCommerce

eCommerce, Online Retail & Retail News

  • Google’s NYC Retail Store Is Reportedly Dead

    Google’s NYC Retail Store Is Reportedly Dead

    Google is not going through with its New York City retail store, which would’ve been the first of its kind.

    The company is currently looking to sublease the 5.442 square-foot location it leased last year. According to Crain’s, Google want’s $2.25 million a year.

    The store would’ve allowed customers to browse and purchase a wide array of Google products and other products featuring Android and Chrome OS. But it looks as if Google’s given up on that concept, at least for now.

    But not before they put a decent amount of money into it

    From Crain’s:

    The decision to abandon its retail store came after the Internet giant spent $6 million renovating the 131 Greene St. location. The outpost was supposed to be one of Google’s first stand-alone stores in the U.S., putting it in direct competition with Apple, which has a host of brick-and-mortar shops that showcase and sell its products in the city, as well as other tech firms with a retail presence. Just last week, Microsoft opened its flagship store on Fifth Avenue.

    Earlier this year, Google opened up a branded “shop within a shop” – a Google Shop inside Currys PC World in London. But this New York store would’ve been the company’s first standalone retail location.

    In other brick-and-mortar news, Amazon just opened up its first ever physical bookstore. It sits in Seattle’s University Village. Amazon’s physical bookstore will still have ties to its online store, as many of the selections will be based on online reviews. If it’s popular online, Amazon will sell it at Amazon Books.

  • Pinterest Buyable Pins Roll Out On Android

    Pinterest announced that it is starting to roll out Buyable Pins on Android in the United States. The feature was first launched on iOS at the end of June.

    According to the company, there are already over 60 million buyable Pins.

    In addition to Android availability, Pinterest announced the Pinterest Shop.

    “Now you can shop the best of Pinterest at our brand new Shop,” says Pinterest software engineer Thorben Primke. “Stop by every day for new collections—from entertaining essentials to cozy winter accessories—hand-picked by us at Pinterest. Look for products from brands you know and love, like Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom, and small boutiques you might not find anywhere else, like The Citizenry and Heist.”

    Last month, Buyable Pins got new platform integrations (IBM Commerce, Magento, and Bigcommerce) and availability for more merchants. The company said it had doubled the number of buyable pins in just over three months.

    Image via Pinterest

  • Uber Rapist Given Life in Prison in India

    An Indian Uber Driver, who was convicted of rape while endangering the life of a woman, kidnapping, and criminal intimidation last month, has been given a sentence of life in prison.

    Shiv Kumar Yadav was found guilty in Delhi on October 20th. His victim, 26, said she fell asleep in the back of his car and when she woke up she found herself in a “secluded location” with Yadav on her in the backseat.

    The BBC reports that Yadav’s life sentence is the maximum penalty he could’ve received.

    The Delhi Uber rape case was one of the most-publicized in recent memory – not just in India but also in the US. In January, the victim sued Uber in US federal court. Her lawsuit was scathing, calling Uber the “modern day equivalent of electronic hitchhiking.” She demanded damages and called for Uber to institute some passenger safeguards in India, including mandatory in-car video cameras.

    Uber was quick to express its disgust when reports of the crime emerged.

    “This is an abhorrent crime. Our thoughts remain with the victim who has shown tremendous courage under the circumstances,” said Uber’s Saad Ahmed at the time. “Safety is our #1 priority and in India.”

    Uber was then suspended in New Delhi.

    “We are sorry and deeply saddened by what happened over the weekend in New Delhi. Our hearts go out to the victim of this horrible crime. We have been and will continue to do everything in our power to assist the authorities to help bring the perpetrator to justice,” said Uber. “The events of this week have made us reflect on our operations in India and we are immediately undertaking a number of important actions. During this review, we will suspend operations in New Delhi.”

    Uber was later reinstated after applying for the required taxi licenses.

    A few months later, Uber improved its “SOS” button for Indian passengers. When in a dangerous situation, tapping the SOS button on the app will automatically connect you with the police – and the update allowed it to also automatically send GPS info.

    In September, the woman pulled her lawsuit.

  • Study: 68% of B2B Buyers Made Online Purchases Last year

    Study: 68% of B2B Buyers Made Online Purchases Last year

    A new study from Accenture Interactive finds that 68% of B2B buyers purchases goods or services online in 2014.

    According to the firm, resistance to change from long-term buyers is the top challenge standing in the way of online growth for B2B organizations.

    78% report moving customers online has the potential to strengthen customer awareness of new products while 74% say it improves cost efficiencies. 70% say it increases the number of new customers.

    “Interestingly, current strategies for moving customers online vary by industry,” a spokesperson for Accenture Interactive tells WebProNews. “While email tactics are consistently used across industries, other nuances emerged that speak to the needs of buyers in each sector.”

    “Editorial content is a critical part of eCommerce initiatives for technology and manufacturing and distribution initiatives, suggesting the need for more compelling reading material in sectors where the subject matter is dense,” the spokesperson says. “Manufacturing and distribution firms emphasize two-way communication tactics, indicating their customers may need more hand-holding to adjust to online purchasing.”

    According to the survey, social media campaigns work well for retailers, which Accenture says speaks to the power of social persuasion in the industry.

    You can find the study here.

    Image via Accenture

  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud Adds Pinterest Features

    Salesforce Marketing Cloud Adds Pinterest Features

    Salesforce just announced that Salesforce Marketing Cloud is now a Pinterest Marketing Developer Partner for Content Publishing with the addition of new tools for Social Studio.

    Marketers can use Social Studio to compose, preview, schedule and publish pins across Pinterest accounts.

    A spokesperson for Salesforce tells WebProNews, “Because this all happens within the easy to use Social Studio desktop and mobile apps, sharing assets and coordinating content approvals across teams is simple.”

    Marketers can also add tracking tags for web analytics, marketing automation, and CRM to pins using Social Studio’s analytics capabilities, which the company says makes it easy to track how Pinterest content drives web visits and conversions.

    You can also review content performance as part of overall digital content reporting and share successful pins with multiple teams and across social networks, Salesforce explains.

    “Brands are already seeing that Pinterest is an incredible place for engagement,” the company says in an announcement. “In fact, two-thirds of content saved to Pinterest comes from businesses. This means that with the right Pins, brands can connect with customers, develop loyal advocates and even inspire them to take action. Research released by Millward Brown found that 87 percent of Pinners have made a purchase because of Pinterest content and 93 percent have used the platform to plan a future purchase. By providing a platform for brands to naturally engage with Pinners as they actively discover products and services, Pinterest has become an important channel for digital marketing and ecommerce.”

    Other Pinterest Marketing Developer Partners for content publishing include Ahaology, Buffer, Curalate, Expion, NewsCred, Percolate, Shoutlet, Spredfast, Sprinklr, and Tailwind.

    Image via Pinterest

  • Uber Driver Records Drunk Passenger’s Brutal Attack

    Uber Driver Records Drunk Passenger’s Brutal Attack

    We’ve reported on plenty of instances of Uber drivers attacking, kidnapping, and raping passengers. Here’s some shocking video from the other side – a drunk passenger brutally attacking a driver.

    In a video uploaded on October 30th, an Uber driver repeatedly asks a passenger to give him directions, and the passenger can be heard slurring, burping, and generally being unable to give directions. At about two minutes into the video, the driver flips his dashcam around.

    At about 2:30, the driver pulls into a parking lot and says “sorry man, I gotta kick you out.”

    “You’re too drunk to give me directions,” he says.

    The passenger argues with the driver for about a minute, but the driver says he’s already ended the trip and tells the passenger to get out of the car, or he’ll call the police.

    At about 3:20, the passenger starts hitting the driver in the face. About 10 seconds into the attack, the driver is able to turn around and spray the passenger with pepper spray.

    You can check out the video below:

    The driver, Edward Caban, tells the story like this:

    It all started when i got a ping while in Newport Beach to pick up a passenger near baja sharkies on the peninsula in Newport, the passenger was incredibly intoxicated and when i pulled up, he came up to the window and asked if I was an uber driver, he appeared to be on the phone with another driver, asking him about what car he was driving. I said yes, and he immediately got in. I confirmed destination, my gps said the black night at the triangle in Costa Mesa, I asked if this was correct, he said yeah, im close to there ill tell you where to go, I asked again if he could just give me his address because I have been down this road before. He refused and insisted on telling me where to trun. We start driving, he begins fading in and out of consciousness while become belligerent and aggressive, and refusing to put his seat belt on, swearing at me, telling me to “fucking turn this piece of shit around” I didn’t feel comfortable when I picked him up and I no longer wanted him in the car at this point. I grabbed the pepper spray from my center console and put it under my right thigh and flipped my camera around and, as i always do when my spidey senses start tingling, made a u-turn, then pulled into a nearby well lit shopping center, and asked him to get out of the car. He insisted on continuing, even though I had already ended the ride. We went back and fourth a bit before I told him if he didnt get out i would call the police. At which point he opened his door and began beating me over the head. I fumbled with the safety on the pepper spray while trying to protect my face with my other arm, I broke free from him grabbing me by the hair on the back of my head, and sprayed his face until he got out of the car, at which point i left the vehicle. Uber drivers don’t get paid enough to deal with this shit.

    Being an Uber driver and dealing with drunks surely sucks, and this is about as bad as it can get.

    6abc reports that the passenger has been identified, and is facing assault charges.

  • Amazon Black Friday Deals Store Opens For Business

    Amazon Black Friday Deals Store Opens For Business

    Halloween is over and November has begun, so that can only mean one thing. Black Friday is getting closer, and Amazon has launched its Black Friday Deals Store and Electronics Holiday Gift Guide.

    “Shoppers come to Amazon to discover the best deals on the best gifts and this year, we’re pulling out all of the stops,” said Steve Shure, Vice President, Amazon Consumer Marketing. “We’re giving Prime members early access to more than 30,000 Lightning Deals and for all customers, tens of thousands of great deals in the Black Friday Deals store. With incredible deals, fast delivery options, curated lists like our Electronics Holiday Gift Guide, gift recommendations, customer reviews and more, we’re making it easier than ever for customers to save time and money on their holiday shopping.”

    Prime members get access to over 30,000 lightning deals 30 minutes before other shoppers. This includes early access to the following deals:

    – 30% off Sony XBR55X900C 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD TV with a Blu-ray Player

    – $170 off the Sony Alpha a6000 Mirrorless Digital Camera with 16-50mm Power Zoom Lens

    – 47% off Jaybird X Sport Bluetooth Headphones

    – Optima HD37 Full 3D 1080p 2600 Lumens DLP Home Cinema Projector for less than $800

    – 40% off select Frye shoes, handbags, accessories and luggage/travel for men and women

    – 40% off select toys from top construction brands including K’NEX, Tegu, and Magformer

    – Up to 50% off select Home Automation products

    – 20% or more off select Wilton and Pyrex bakeware products

    – Deals from top Kitchen brands including Rubbermaid, KitchenAid, Paderno, and Instant Pot

    – $10 off select $50 Black & Decker product purchases

    – Up to 50% off hundreds of PetSafe items

    The store will run through December 22. You can find it at Amazon.com/blackfriday.

    The Electronics Holiday Gift Guide has over 600 items organized by category and gift recipient.

  • LinkedIn Impresses With Earnings, Reaches 400 Million Members

    LinkedIn Impresses With Earnings, Reaches 400 Million Members

    LinkedIn just released its Q3 financial results, and knocked them out of the park. Shares quickly began to skyrocket in after hours trading after the company posed massive beats.

    Adjusted earnings per share of $0.78 topped the expected $0.45 while revenue was $780 million, well ahead of the expected $756 million.

    $41 million of the revenue came from Lynda.com. Talent Solutions revenue was $502 million, up 46% from the same period last year. Marketing Solutions revenue was $140 million, up 28%. Premium subscriptions revenue was $138 million, an increase of 21%.

    “LinkedIn delivered strong results in the third quarter, and recently announced several products focused on delivering increased member and customer value,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. “Our commitment to investing in our long-term roadmap continues to lay the foundation for future growth of the company.”

    “LinkedIn achieved strong performance across all three product lines during the quarter,” said CFO Steve Sordello. “We remain focused on pursuing long-term investments to achieve future growth and increased profitability.”

    LinkedIn also announced that it has reached over 400 million members.

    In a blog post about that, Aatif Awan writes, “Our vision at LinkedIn is to create economic opportunity for every member of the 3.3 billion strong global workforce. To realize this vision, we’re creating the world’s first economic graph by digitally mapping the global economy, identifying the connections between people, jobs, companies, skills, schools, and knowledge. You, our members, make up the core of the economic graph, and play an important role in bringing this vision to life.”

    Here’s the release in its entirety:

    MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 29, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — LinkedIn Corporation (NYSE:LNKD), the world’s largest professional network on the Internet reported its results for the third quarter of 2015. The transcript with prepared remarks is contained within this release. In addition, a supplemental presentation will be made available on the investor relations section of the LinkedIn website at http://investors.linkedin.com.

    “LinkedIn delivered strong results in the third quarter, and recently announced several products focused on delivering increased member and customer value,” said Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn. “Our commitment to investing in our long-term roadmap continues to lay the foundation for future growth of the company.”

    LinkedIn added a number of enhancements across our member value propositions during the quarter, including replacing the email inbox with a new messaging experience, expanding the publishing platform to include German, French, and Portuguese languages and developing the next generation of LinkedIn’s mobile flagship experience.

    Total revenue increased 37% year-over-year to $780 million, which includes $41 million in revenue from lynda.com.

    Talent Solutions revenue increased 46% year-over-year to $502 million.

    • Hiring contributed $461 million in revenue, up 34% year-over-year, driven by continued operational improvement from our field sales organization and strong online growth.
    • Learning & Development contributed $41 million in revenue, in its first full quarter of contribution post acquisition.

    Marketing Solutions revenue grew 28% year-over-year to $140 million.

    • Sponsored Updates performance once again exceeded 100% year-over-year growth, partially offset by expected premium display headwinds.

    Premium Subscriptions revenue improved 21% year-over-year to $138 million.

    • Sales Navigator continued to gain traction with large enterprises and saw improvements in customers’ satisfaction.

    Adjusted EBITDA was $208 million, or 27% of revenue which is consistent with last year. GAAP net loss attributable to common stockholders was $41 million and non-GAAP net income was $103 million.

    GAAP diluted EPS was $(0.31), below last year’s performance of $(0.03). Non-GAAP diluted EPS improved to $0.78 compared to $0.52 last year.

    “LinkedIn achieved strong performance across all three product lines during the quarter,” said Steve Sordello, CFO of LinkedIn. “We remain focused on pursuing long-term investments to achieve future growth and increased profitability.”

    Business Outlook

    LinkedIn is providing guidance for the fourth quarter and full year 2015. Further details can be found in the transcript below and the supplemental presentation, which will be made available on the investor relations section of the LinkedIn website at http://investors.linkedin.com:

    • Q4 2015 Guidance: Revenue is expected to range between $845 million and $850 million. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be approximately $210 million. Non-GAAP EPS is expected to be approximately $0.74. The company expects depreciation of approximately $78 million, amortization of approximately $47 million, and stock-based compensation of approximately $135 million. The company also expects approximately 132 million GAAP fully-diluted weighted shares and 134 million non-GAAP fully-diluted weighted shares.
    • Full Year 2015 Guidance: Revenue is expected to range between $2.975 billion and $2.980 billion. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be approximately $740 million. Non-GAAP EPS is expected to be approximately $2.63. The company expects depreciation of approximately $281 million, amortization of approximately $135 million, and stock-based compensation of approximately $510 million. The company also expects approximately 129 million GAAP fully-diluted weighted shares and 131 million non-GAAP fully-diluted weighted shares.

    Prepared Remarks — Jeff Weiner, CEO LinkedIn Corporation

    Q3 was a strong quarter for LinkedIn. Our member-facing product pipeline has never been stronger, and recent roll-outs are driving continued positive engagement trends. In terms of our business lines, Talent Solutions performed well, while Marketing Solutions remained stable. We also made good progress in Sales Solutions and lynda.com, our more nascent opportunities, which are future growth drivers for the company.

    For Q3, overall revenues grew 37% to $780 million. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $208 million, and non-GAAP EPS of $0.78 cents.

    Q3 cumulative members grew 20% to 396 million, and last week reached the 400 million member milestone. Unique visiting members grew 11% to an average of 100 million per month, and member page views grew 33%. This has yielded 20% year over year growth in page views per unique visiting member, continuing a pattern of accelerated growth throughout 2015. This is in part a result of placing more emphasis on quality engagement for our members and less on transactional engagement generated by emails. Mobile continues to grow at double the rate of overall member activity, and now represents 55% of all traffic to LinkedIn.

    LinkedIn’s value proposition is simple – connect to opportunity. For our members, this means three things: connect to your professional world, stay informed through professional news and knowledge, and get hired and build your career. In 2015, we made substantial progress on delivering these value propositions. Here are a few highlights of the progress we’ve made since our last earnings call.

    We continued to expand the LinkedIn network globally. Since our last call, China has continued to accelerate the absolute number of signups, and now has more than 13 million members, up more than 3x since early 2014 when we launched our local language version. Though still early, we are also seeing strong sign-ups and engagement for Chitu, our first professional networking app designed specifically for the Chinese market.

    In Q3, we replaced the traditional Inbox with Messaging, a more lightweight and casual communications interface. While still early, but we have already seen a double digit percentage increase in the number of messages sent between members, and a significant lift in one day reply rates. Messaging is already available for our English-language members, and we are in the process of completing the roll out globally.

    Finally, a few weeks ago, we previewed the next generation of LinkedIn’s mobile flagship experience. This new app was developed mobile first; does fewer things better; and is faster, simpler, and more personalized. It’s structured around five key pillars – the Feed, Profile, My Network, Messaging, and Search – and will launch next month. In 2016, these pillars will also serve as the foundation for the ongoing evolution of our desktop site.

    Connecting our members to relevant news, knowledge, and skills is another strategic priority integral to creating member value.  Our publishing platform is central to this effort. In Q3, the number of long-form posts published per week reached more than 150,000. We also recently added the ability to post long-form content in more languages, including Portuguese, French, and German. And last week, we welcomed Oprah Winfrey to the Influencer platform.

    Lastly, helping members get hired is one of the fastest growing areas of engagement on LinkedIn. We continue to increase the scale of jobs on the platform, with more than 4 million active job listings today, compared to roughly 1 million a year ago. Monthly job page views were up over 90% year over year in September, and we have seen a 75% year over year increase in applications to those jobs.

    Creating value for our members enables us to transform the way our customers Hire, Market, and Sell on a global basis through our three diverse product lines. In Q3, Talent Solutions grew 46% to $502 million, inclusive of Learning & Development revenue from lynda.com;  Marketing Solutions was up 28% to $140 million; and Premium Subscriptions, which includes Sales Solutions, increased 21% to $138 million.

    For Talent Solutions, Q3 saw continued strength stemming from the sales force realignment done at the start of the year. We have been investing in Talent Solutions R&D throughout 2015, and we now have the most powerful pipeline of new products for recruiters in our history. At Talent Connect, we announced two of our biggest – LinkedIn Referrals, and a completely revamped Recruiter platform. Both products enable employers to more easily leverage better data and employee relationships to hire the right talent faster. Referrals is expected to launch in November, and the new Recruiter early next year.

    The ongoing integration of lynda.com progressed in Q3 with the launch of new LinkedIn Influencer courses and new features for our members. And the enterprise business remains strong; last quarter, lynda signed an existing customer to multi-year renewal for more than four million dollars, the largest deal in its history.

    For Marketing Solutions, we continue to create a more scalable business and become the most effective platform for marketers to engage professionals. In Q3, Sponsored Updates accounted for approximately half of all Marketing Solutions revenue, and continues to grow in excess of 100% year over year.

    In Sales Solutions, we launched a new Sales Navigator homepage with integrated Social Selling Index data. Sales Navigator customer satisfaction continued to increase during Q3. In addition, the field sales team is seeing early success with a “land and expand” go to market strategy.

    Additionally, just this week, LinkedIn and EY agreed on the largest single deal in our history, leveraging Sales Navigator as a platform, as well as a go-to-market alliance to help accelerate our respective growth in the business-to-business enterprise market.  Our collaboration with EY will enable us to leverage EY’s extensive capabilities, footprint and global reach.  Together, we’ll help companies develop deeper and more trusted customer relationships through social and data analytics.  We believe this strategic relationship will lead to collaboration and co-creation of solutions, generating opportunities for both of our organizations.

    Lastly, LinkedIn @ Work, our newest value proposition for our customers, continues to gain momentum. In August, we launched LinkedIn LookUp, a standalone app that allows members to find and contact co-workers. And in September, we announced the general availability of LinkedIn Elevate to all large enterprises. Nearly all of the pilot partners up for renewal have purchased the product.

    As we think about 2016, we expect to accelerate our focus on how we integrate all of these assets to help enterprises hire, market, and sell by using LinkedIn to connect to opportunity.

    Finally, a word about our Talent, our most important operating priority. In Q3, we made strong progress on hiring senior level engineering talent, as well as hiring a record number of engineering managers, both of which are key objectives for us in 2015. This  traction enables us to scale faster and deliver our product roadmap more effectively.

    And now, I’ll turn it over to Steve for a deeper dive into our operating metrics and financials.

    Prepared Remarks — Steve Sordello, CFO LinkedIn Corporation

    Today I will discuss growth rates on a year-over-year basis unless indicated otherwise, and non-GAAP financial measures exclude items such as stock-based compensation expenses, amortization of intangibles, and the tax impacts of these adjustments.

    During the third quarter, we demonstrated strong financial performance, and made significant progress on our long-term product roadmap for both members and customers.

    With respect to revenue, in Q3 we generated $780 million in total sales, an increase of 37% year-over-year, or 43% on a constant currency basis. While lynda contributed approximately $41 million to revenue in its first full quarter post acquisition, the vast majority of our out performance relative to guidance was driven by the core business.

    Talent Solutions, showed strong performance, with revenue of $502 million growing 46% year-over-year, and represented 64% of sales versus 61% last year.

    Within our Hiring business, revenue grew 34% year-over-year, or 39% on a constant currency basis.

    In our field sales channel, we saw nice year-over-year improvement in both churn and the net ratio. We also saw steady growth in new customers as we approach nearly 40,000 enterprise accounts under contract.

    Our online channel is where small companies turn to LinkedIn on a self-serve basis, and in Q3 showed solid growth. All three online products – Recruiter Lite, Job Seeker, and online jobs – exhibited strength, the result of an upgraded customer experience.

    Learning & Development contributed $41 million in the first full quarter following the lynda acquisition. Our product and go-to-market teams have focused on growing lynda’s existing business, and we plan to begin launching more integrated consumer and enterprise products in 2016.

    Marketing Solutions grew 28% to $140 million, or 34% on a constant currency basis, and represented 18% of revenue versus 19% last year.

    Sponsored Updates maintained strong momentum, and continues to be the driver of our advertising business. Sponsored Updates represented nearly 50% of marketing revenue, and once again grew in excess of 100% year-over-year. Recent growth has been driven by increased customer demand, aided by the launch of our new online campaign manager.

    As expected, CPM-based premium display continued to face secular-driven headwinds. We experienced similar trends as compared with last quarter with revenue decreasing in the mid 30% range year-over-year. Premium display now represents approximately 15% of the Marketing Solutions mix compared with approximately 30% last year. As Sponsored Updates continues to grow, we expect premium display to contribute a smaller portion of our long-term mix.

    We also remained focused on the B2B opportunity and continue to evolve our recently launched LinkedIn Lead Accelerator product. During the quarter, we saw churn decrease due to the emphasis on annual vs. quarterly campaigns.

    Premium Subscriptions grew to $138 million up 21% year-over-year, or 26% growth on a constant currency basis, and contributed 18% of revenue versus 20% last year.

    Sales Solutions remained the faster growing component of Premium, now representing over one-third of this revenue line. We continue to make both product and go-to-market gains as this new business enters its second year.

    In addition to introducing Sales Navigator to new enterprise customers like EY, we continue to gain traction with our land and expand play book. Microsoft provides a terrific example, having grown their social selling practice from 15 Sales Navigator seats to more than 3,000 in less than two years. In the process, their social selling reps have seen a nearly 40% increase in productivity when compared to traditional sales reps.

    General subscriptions still represents the majority of premium revenue, though since launching the new on-boarding experience late last year, we continue to see the individual subscriber mix shift towards Job Seeker and Recruiter Lite which are both reported within Talent Solutions.

    In terms of geography, revenue generated outside the US represented 38% of overall revenue versus 40% last year, or 40% this quarter on a constant currency basis. EMEA performed well showing acceleration during the quarter, and APAC showed nice improvement as well.

    By channel, field sales contributed 62% of revenue versus 60% last year. While a smaller portion of our revenue, higher margin online products performed well during the quarter, especially within Talent Solutions.

    Moving to the non-GAAP financials, Adjusted EBITDA was $208 million, a 27% margin. This exceeded our expectations with revenue driving over half of our out performance, the vast majority coming from the core business, with especially strong performance from high-margin online products. The remainder of over performance was tied to lower expenses oriented across several areas including lynda and facilities.

    Depreciation and Amortization totaled $118 million while stock compensation was $127 million.

    GAAP net loss was $41 million, resulting in a $0.31 loss per share, compared to a loss of $4 million and $0.03 last year.

    Non-GAAP net income was $103 million, resulting in earnings of $0.78 per share, compared with $66 million and $0.52 last year.

    The balance sheet remains well positioned with $3.1 billion of cash and marketable securities. Operating cash flow was $240 million versus $181 million a year ago, and free cash flow was $73 million, up from $61 million last year. Note, capex increased meaningfully quarter over quarter as we began the buildout of our third self-managed data center.

    I will end the call with guidance for the fourth quarter and an updated outlook for 2015.

    For the fourth quarter:

    • We expect revenue between $845 and $850 million, 32% growth at the midpoint.
    • We expect Adjusted EBITDA of approximately $210 million, a 25% margin.
    • For non-GAAP EPS, we expect approximately $0.74 per share.

    For the full year:

    • We expect revenue between approximately $2.975 and $2.980 billion, representing growth of 34% year-over-year.
      • This represents an increase of $35 – $40 million compared to prior guidance. The majority of the out performance was driven by Q3 results, with the remaining increase from a slight up-tick in our Q4 outlook for both our core business and lynda.
    • We expect Adjusted EBITDA of approximately $740 million, a 25% margin.
      • This represents an increase of approximately $75 million compared to prior guidance, with Q3 out performance of about $60 million.
    • For non-GAAP EPS, we expect approximately $2.63 per share.

    I will now provide some additional context on guidance.

    With respect to revenue in the fourth quarter:

    • Within Hiring, Learning & Development, and Sales Solutions, we expect healthy underlying trends to continue, albeit compared against a particularly strong Q4 in 2014.
    • For Marketing Solutions specifically, we expect Sponsored Updates to continue to drive our growth, offsetting consistent secular display headwinds and our first full quarter with a year-over-year comparison post the Bizo acquisition last year.
    • We also expect an approximately 5% growth headwind relative to F/X, unchanged from our previous Q4 outlook.

    With respect to Adjusted EBITDA guidance:

    • We expect greater expense impact from a heavier quarter of sales rep hiring, greater field sales seasonality after a particularly strong online quarter in Q3, and ongoing investments in key areas including China and our member platform as we launch the new flagship app.

    Lastly, I want to touch on how improvements to member-facing products will impact engagement metrics in the short-term:

    1. First, we are streamlining our new mobile app thereby decreasing the number of page views necessary to deliver a high quality experience. Specifically, more intuitive tabbed browsing replaces a dedicated navigation page, creating more seamless interaction.
    2. Second, we continue to remove emails and other transactional pages that generate lower value engagement to the site. This creates a better experience and long-term value for members, but will have a short-term impact on page view growth, especially when compared against a heavy transactional period like Q4’2014.

    Both initiatives reflect our commitment and investment in the member platform. Throughout 2015, we have increasingly seen deeper member interaction across our core value propositions, including greater than 90% growth in traffic to jobs, and publishing content growing two times faster than the overall site. We look forward to sharing continued progress as we further innovate on our member platform.

    Additional guidance incorporates:

    • Depreciation of approximately $78 million for Q4 and $281 million for the full year, with fourth quarter amortization of approximately $47 million and $135 million for the full year.
    • Stock based compensation of approximately $135 million for Q4 and approximately $510 million for the full year.
    • Other expense of approximately $16 million for Q4 and $57 million for the full year, including GAAP-only convertible accretion of $12 million in Q4 and $46 million for the full year.
      • In addition in Q4 we are evaluating and may adopt new accounting guidance with regard to our China JV, which increases the volatility of non-cash other expense.
    • A Non-GAAP tax rate of 23% for Q4 and the full year.
    • Capex of approximately 20% of revenue for the full year, reflecting the 2nd half data center build-out.
    • And for the share count:
      • On a GAAP basis, we expect 132 million fully diluted weighted shares in Q4, and an average of 129 million for the full year.
      • On a non-GAAP basis, we expect 134 million fully diluted weighted shares in Q4 and an average of 131 million for the full year.

    In closing, LinkedIn delivered strong performance during the third quarter.  As we end the year, our focus remains on the long-term realization of our mission and vision. This is an exciting period for LinkedIn as our product innovation takes root with complete re-designs of both our flagship mobile app and recruiter platform. We will continue to focus on areas that drive the greatest long-term business impact, while scaling our platform to create the most value for our members and customers.

    LINKEDIN CORPORATION
    TRENDED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS
    (In thousands)
    (Unaudited)
    As of
    September 30,
    2014
    December 31,
    2014
    March 31,
    2015
    June 30,
    2015
    September 30,
    2015
    ASSETS
    CURRENT ASSETS:
    Cash and cash equivalents $ 526,837 $ 460,887 $ 1,017,287 $ 450,991 $ 631,725
    Marketable securities 1,736,958 2,982,422 2,512,588 2,582,435 2,457,607
    Accounts receivable 344,773 449,048 424,787 449,500 457,975
    Deferred commissions 40,810 66,561 60,259 58,585 56,453
    Prepaid expenses 55,571 52,978 62,800 75,669 72,752
    Other current assets 79,795 110,204 141,798 118,718 136,225
    Total current assets 2,784,744 4,122,100 4,219,519 3,735,898 3,812,737
    Property and equipment, net 557,017 740,909 755,396 793,034 906,189
    Goodwill 356,369 356,718 359,739 1,492,972 1,508,946
    Intangible assets, net 140,802 131,275 122,826 456,233 418,050
    Other assets 67,080 76,255 80,684 78,645 70,788
    TOTAL ASSETS $ 3,906,012 $ 5,427,257 $ 5,538,164 $ 6,556,782 $ 6,716,710
    LIABILITIES, REDEEMABLE NONCONTROLLING INTEREST, AND STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY
    CURRENT LIABILITIES:
    Accounts payable $ 106,658 $ 100,297 $ 85,104 $ 109,715 $ 123,329
    Accrued liabilities 188,983 260,189 206,826 256,958 296,794
    Deferred revenue 463,576 522,299 585,812 629,671 621,411
    Total current liabilities 759,217 882,785 877,742 996,344 1,041,534
    CONVERTIBLE SENIOR NOTES, NET 1,081,553 1,092,715 1,104,010 1,115,439
    DEFERRED TAX LIABILITIES 41,327 55,100 46,645
    OTHER LONG-TERM LIABILITIES 105,043 132,100 143,704 180,101 185,187
    Total liabilities 905,587 2,096,438 2,114,161 2,335,555 2,388,805
    COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES
    REDEEMABLE NONCONTROLLING INTEREST 5,327 5,427 5,536 25,784 26,296
    STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY:
    Class A and Class B common stock 12 13 13 13 13
    Additional paid-in capital 2,957,524 3,285,705 3,420,045 4,268,731 4,405,911
    Accumulated other comprehensive income (loss) 685 (198 ) 1,085 (2,877 ) 6,632
    Accumulated earnings (deficit) 36,877 39,872 (2,676 ) (70,424 ) (110,947 )
     Total stockholders’ equity 2,995,098 3,325,392 3,418,467 4,195,443 4,301,609
    TOTAL LIABILITIES, REDEEMABLE NONCONTROLLING INTEREST, AND STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY $ 3,906,012 $ 5,427,257 $ 5,538,164 $ 6,556,782 $ 6,716,710
    LINKEDIN CORPORATION
    TRENDED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS
    (In thousands, except per share data)
    (Unaudited)
    Three Months Ended
    September 30,
    2014
    December 31,
    2014
    March 31,
    2015
    June 30,
    2015
    September 30,
    2015
    Net revenue $ 568,265 $ 643,432 $ 637,687 $ 711,735 $ 779,595
    Costs and expenses:
    Cost of revenue (exclusive of depreciation and amortization shown separately below) 74,904 86,902 88,406 100,086 111,368
    Sales and marketing 199,168 224,227 229,636 261,271 265,454
    Product development 136,542 150,289 165,580 190,133 202,682
    General and administrative 89,266 96,722 97,313 142,389 118,871
    Depreciation and amortization 59,782 71,118 73,972 99,004 117,901
    Total costs and expenses 559,662 629,258 654,907 792,883 816,276
    Income (loss) from operations 8,603 14,174 (17,220 ) (81,148 ) (36,681 )
    Other income (expense), net:
    Interest income 1,413 1,223 1,985 2,017 2,798
    Interest expense (6,797 ) (12,597 ) (12,694 ) (12,773 )
    Other, net (1,261 ) (1,731 ) (4,035 ) (1,723 ) (3,784 )
    Other income (expense), net 152 (7,305 ) (14,647 ) (12,400 ) (13,759 )
    Income (loss) before income taxes 8,755 6,869 (31,867 ) (93,548 ) (50,440 )
    Provision (benefit) for income taxes 12,917 3,774 10,572 (26,048 ) (10,429 )
    Net income (loss) (4,162 ) 3,095 (42,439 ) (67,500 ) (40,011 )
    Accretion of redeemable noncontrolling interest (101 ) (100 ) (109 ) (248 ) (512 )
    Net income (loss) attributable to common stockholders $ (4,263 ) $ 2,995 $ (42,548 ) $ (67,748 ) $ (40,523 )
    Net income (loss) per share attributable to common stockholders:
    Basic $ (0.03 ) $ 0.02 $ (0.34 ) $ (0.53 ) $ (0.31 )
    Diluted $ (0.03 ) $ 0.02 $ (0.34 ) $ (0.53 ) $ (0.31 )
    Weighted-average shares used to compute net income (loss) per share attributable to common stockholders:
    Basic 123,427 124,590 125,471 128,241 130,716
    Diluted 123,427 127,338 125,471 128,241 130,716
    LINKEDIN CORPORATION
    TRENDED CONDENSED CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS
    (In thousands)
    (Unaudited)
    Three Months Ended
    September 30,
    2014
    December 31,
    2014
    March 31,
    2015
    June 30,
    2015
    September 30,
    2015
    OPERATING ACTIVITIES:
    Net income (loss) $ (4,162 ) $ 3,095 $ (42,439 ) $ (67,500 ) $ (40,011 )
    Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to net cash provided by operating activities:
    Depreciation and amortization 59,782 71,118 73,972 99,004 117,901
    Provision for doubtful accounts and sales returns 3,805 2,216 1,795 3,280 3,373
    Amortization of investment premiums, net 3,457 4,309 5,514 5,001 5,362
    Amortization of debt discount and transaction costs 5,916 11,189 11,322 11,456
    Stock-based compensation 82,910 93,626 103,109 145,491 126,874
    Excess income tax benefit from stock-based compensation (13,114 ) (51,512 ) (18,198 ) 18,198 1,726
    Changes in operating assets and liabilities:
    Accounts receivable 15,657 (103,002 ) 29,489 (21,887 ) (9,168 )
    Deferred commissions 4,836 (29,073 ) 7,067 1,535 3,094
    Prepaid expenses and other assets (15,605 ) (4,383 ) (34,629 ) (1,957 ) (9,568 )
    Accounts payable and other liabilities 54,017 89,656 (40,725 ) 55,959 51,954
    Income taxes, net 8,248 (10,258 ) 5,629 (22,876 ) (15,659 )
    Deferred revenue (18,605 ) 58,723 63,359 72 (7,739 )
    Net cash provided by operating activities 181,226 130,431 165,132 225,642 239,595
    INVESTING ACTIVITIES:
    Purchases of property and equipment (120,721 ) (241,611 ) (90,121 ) (72,462 ) (166,653 )
    Purchases of investments (501,074 ) (1,542,950 ) (454,281 ) (632,774 ) (809,448 )
    Sales of investments 53,511 50,924 438,409 141,452 391,914
    Maturities of investments 429,641 238,283 482,840 417,115 536,891
    Payments for intangible assets and acquisitions, net of cash acquired (160,894 ) (2,783 ) (4,161 ) (650,681 ) (20,030 )
    Changes in deposits and restricted cash (20,504 ) 5,499 (1,382 ) (1,877 ) 10,461
    Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities (320,041 ) (1,492,638 ) 371,304 (799,227 ) (56,865 )
    FINANCING ACTIVITIES:
    Net cash provided by financing activities (1) 24,864 1,299,746 26,739 3,364 1,255
    EFFECT OF EXCHANGE RATE CHANGES ON CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS (4,304 ) (3,489 ) (6,775 ) 3,925 (3,251 )
    CHANGE IN CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS (118,255 ) (65,950 ) 556,400 (566,296 ) 180,734
    CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS—Beginning of period 645,092 526,837 460,887 1,017,287 450,991
    CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS—End of period $ 526,837 $ 460,887 $ 1,017,287 $ 450,991 $ 631,725
    (1) In the fourth quarter of 2014, we received net proceeds from our convertible senior notes offering, after deducting initial purchasers’ discount and debt issuance costs, of approximately $1,305.4 million. Concurrently with the issuance of the notes, we used approximately $248.0 million of the net proceeds of the offering of the notes to pay the cost of convertible note hedge transactions, which was offset by $167.3 million in proceeds from warrants we sold.
    LINKEDIN CORPORATION
    TRENDED SUPPLEMENTAL REVENUE INFORMATION
    (In thousands)
    (Unaudited)
    Three Months Ended
    September 30,
    2014
     December 31,
    2014
    March 31,
    2015
    June 30,
    2015
    September 30,
    2015
    Revenue by product:
    Talent Solutions
    Hiring $ 344,568 $ 369,348 $ 396,375 $ 425,812 $ 460,838
    Learning & Development 17,558 41,273
    Total Talent Solutions 344,568 369,348 396,375 443,370 502,111
    Marketing Solutions 109,231 152,729 119,192 140,037 139,549
    Premium Subscriptions 114,466 121,355 122,120 128,328 137,935
    Total $ 568,265 $ 643,432 $ 637,687 $ 711,735 $ 779,595
    Revenue by geographic region:
    United States $ 343,132 $ 388,194 $ 389,258 $ 444,531 $ 484,300
    International
    Other Americas (1) 36,538 39,238 38,066 39,904 43,505
    EMEA (2) 139,702 162,064 156,563 168,771 187,286
    APAC (3) 48,893 53,936 53,800 58,529 64,504
    Total International revenue 225,133 255,238 248,429 267,204 295,295
    Total revenue $ 568,265 $ 643,432 $ 637,687 $ 711,735 $ 779,595
    Revenue by geography, by product:
    United States
    Talent Solutions $ 208,635 $ 222,670 $ 240,752 $ 277,772 $ 309,935
    Marketing Solutions 68,767 94,991 77,412 91,761 93,362
    Premium Subscriptions 65,730 70,533 71,094 74,998 81,003
    Total United States revenue $ 343,132 $ 388,194 $ 389,258 $ 444,531 $ 484,300
    International
    Talent Solutions 135,933 146,678 155,623 165,598 192,176
    Marketing Solutions 40,464 57,738 41,780 48,276 46,187
    Premium Subscriptions 48,736 50,822 51,026 53,330 56,932
    Total International revenue $ 225,133 $ 255,238 $ 248,429 $ 267,204 $ 295,295
    Total revenue $ 568,265 $ 643,432 $ 637,687 $ 711,735 $ 779,595
    Revenue by channel:
    Field sales $ 341,691 $ 413,867 $ 393,251 $ 440,476 $ 479,547
    Online sales 226,574 229,565 244,436 271,259 300,048
    Total $ 568,265 $ 643,432 $ 637,687 $ 711,735 $ 779,595
    (1)  Canada, Latin America and South America
    (2)  Europe, the Middle East and Africa (“EMEA”)
    (3)  Asia-Pacific (“APAC”)
    LINKEDIN CORPORATION
    TRENDED RECONCILIATION OF GAAP TO NON-GAAP FINANCIAL MEASURES
    (In thousands, except per share data)
    (Unaudited)
    Three Months Ended
    September 30,
    2014
    December 31,
    2014
    March 31,
    2015
    June 30,
    2015
    September 30,
    2015
    Non-GAAP net income and net income per share:
    GAAP net income (loss) attributable to common stockholders $ (4,263 ) $ 2,995 $ (42,548 ) $ (67,748 ) $ (40,523 )
    Add back: stock-based compensation 82,910 93,626 103,109 145,491 126,874
    Add back: non-cash interest expense related to convertible senior notes 5,916 11,189 11,322 11,456
    Add back: amortization of intangible assets 9,986 12,612 11,778 29,474 46,466
    Add back: accretion of redeemable noncontrolling interest 101 100 109 248 512
    Income tax effects and adjustments (1) (22,661 ) (37,884 ) (11,096 ) (47,378 ) (41,331 )
    NON-GAAP NET INCOME $ 66,073 $ 77,365 $ 72,541 $ 71,409 $ 103,454
    GAAP diluted shares 123,427 127,338 125,471 128,241 130,716
    Add back: dilutive shares under the treasury stock method 3,046 2,827 2,224 1,825
    NON-GAAP DILUTED SHARES 126,473 127,338 128,298 130,465 132,541
    NON-GAAP DILUTED NET INCOME PER SHARE $ 0.52 $ 0.61 $ 0.57 $ 0.55 $ 0.78
    Adjusted EBITDA:
    Net income (loss) $ (4,162 ) $ 3,095 $ (42,439 ) $ (67,500 ) $ (40,011 )
    Provision (benefit) for income taxes 12,917 3,774 10,572 (26,048 ) (10,429 )
    Other (income) expense, net (152 ) 7,305 14,647 12,400 13,759
    Depreciation and amortization 59,782 71,118 73,972 99,004 117,901
    Stock-based compensation 82,910 93,626 103,109 145,491 126,874
    ADJUSTED EBITDA $ 151,295 $ 178,918 $ 159,861 $ 163,347 $ 208,094
    (1)  Excludes accretion of redeemable noncontrolling interest

    Quarterly Results Webcast and Conference Call

    LinkedIn will host a webcast and conference call to discuss its third quarter 2015 financial results and business outlook today at 2:00 p.m. Pacific Time. Jeff Weiner and Steve Sordello will host the webcast, which can be viewed on the investor relations section of the LinkedIn website at http://investors.linkedin.com/. This call will contain forward-looking statements and other material information regarding the company’s financial and operating results. Following completion of the call, a recorded replay of the webcast will be available on the website.

    Upcoming Events

    Management will participate in upcoming financial Q&A discussions at industry events on November 17th, December 1st and 8th of 2015. LinkedIn will furnish a link to these events on its investor relations website, http://investors.linkedin.com/ for both the live and archived webcasts.

    About LinkedIn

    LinkedIn connects the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful and transforms the ways companies hire, market and sell. Our vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce through the ongoing development of the world’s first Economic Graph. LinkedIn has offices around the world.

    Non-GAAP Financial Measures

    To supplement its condensed consolidated financial statements, which are prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP, the company uses the following non-GAAP financial measures: adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP net income, and non-GAAP diluted EPS (collectively the “non-GAAP financial measures”). The presentation of this financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for, or superior to, the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with GAAP. The company uses these non-GAAP financial measures for financial and operational decision making and as a means to evaluate period-to-period comparisons. The company believes that they provide useful information about operating results, enhance the overall understanding of past financial performance and future prospects, and allow for greater transparency with respect to key metrics used by management in its financial and operational decision making.

    The company excludes the following items from one or more of its non-GAAP measures:

    Stock-based compensation. The company excludes stock-based compensation because it is non-cash in nature and because the company believes that the non-GAAP financial measures excluding this item provide meaningful supplemental information regarding operational performance and liquidity. The company further believes this measure is useful to investors in that it allows for greater transparency to certain line items in its financial statements and facilitates comparisons to peer operating results.

    Non-cash interest expense related to convertible senior notes. In November 2014, the company issued $1.3 billion aggregate principal amount of 0.50% convertible senior notes. In accordance with GAAP, the company separately accounted for the value of the conversion feature as a debt discount, which is amortized in a manner that reflects the company’s non-convertible debt borrowing rate. Accordingly, the company recognizes imputed interest expense on its convertible senior notes of approximately 4.7% in its statement of operations. The company excludes the difference between the imputed interest expense and coupon interest expense, net of any capitalized interest, because it is non-cash in nature and because the company believes that the non-GAAP financial measures excluding this item provide meaningful supplemental information regarding operational performance and liquidity. In addition, excluding this item from the non-GAAP measures facilitates comparisons to historical operating results and comparisons to peer operating results.

    Amortization of acquired intangible assets. The company excludes amortization of acquired intangible assets because it is non-cash in nature and because the company believes that the non-GAAP financial measures excluding this item provide meaningful supplemental information regarding operational performance and liquidity. In addition, excluding this item from the non-GAAP measures facilitates comparisons to historical operating results and comparisons to peer operating results.

    Accretion of redeemable noncontrolling interest. The accretion of redeemable noncontrolling interest represents the accretion of the company’s redeemable noncontrolling interest to its redemption value. The company excludes the accretion because it is non-cash in nature and because the company believes that the non-GAAP financial measures excluding this item provide meaningful supplemental information regarding operating performance. In addition, excluding this item from the non-GAAP financial measures facilitates comparisons to historical operating results and comparisons to peer operating results.

    Income tax effects and adjustments. The company adjusts non-GAAP net income by considering the income tax effects of excluding stock-based compensation and the amortization of acquired intangible assets. Beginning in the first quarter of 2014, the company has implemented a static non-GAAP tax rate for evaluating its operating performance as well as for planning and forecasting purposes. This projected 10-year weighted average non-GAAP tax rate eliminates the effects of non-recurring and period specific items, which can vary in size and frequency and does not necessarily reflect the company’s long-term operations. Historically, the company computed a non-GAAP tax rate based on non-GAAP pre-tax income on a quarterly basis. Based on the company’s current forecast, a tax rate of 23% has been applied to its non-GAAP financial results for the current period. This rate will be adjusted annually, if necessary. The company believes that adjusting for these income tax effects and adjustments provides additional transparency to the overall or “after tax” effects of excluding these items from its non-GAAP net income.

    Dilutive shares under the treasury stock method. During periods with a net loss, the company excluded certain potential common shares from its GAAP diluted shares because their effect would have been anti-dilutive. On a non-GAAP basis, these shares would have been dilutive. As a result, the company has included the impact of these shares in the calculation of its non-GAAP diluted net income per share under the treasury stock method.

    For more information on the non-GAAP financial measures, please see the “Trended Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures” table in this press release. This accompanying table has more details on the GAAP financial measures that are most directly comparable to non-GAAP financial measures and the related reconciliations between these financial measures. Additionally, the company has not reconciled adjusted EBITDA or non-GAAP EPS guidance to net loss or GAAP EPS guidance because it does not provide guidance for either other income (expense), net, or GAAP provision for income taxes, which are reconciling items between net loss and adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP EPS. As items that impact net loss are out of the company’s control and/or cannot be reasonably predicted, the company is unable to provide such guidance. Accordingly, a reconciliation to net loss is not available without unreasonable effort.

    Safe Harbor Statement

    “Safe Harbor” statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This press release and the accompanying conference call contain forward-looking statements about our products, including our investments in products, technology and other key strategic areas, certain non-financial metrics, such as customer and member growth and engagement, and our expected financial metrics such as revenue, adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP EPS, depreciation and amortization, stock-based compensation and fully-diluted weighted shares for the fourth quarter of 2015 and the full fiscal year 2015. The achievement of the matters covered by such forward-looking statements involves risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If any of these risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, the company’s results could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements the company makes.

    The risks and uncertainties referred to above include – but are not limited to – risks associated with: our limited operating history in a new and unproven market; engagement of our members; the price volatility of our Class A common stock; general economic conditions; expectations regarding the return on our strategic investments; execution of our plans and strategies, including with respect to mobile products and features and expansion into new areas and businesses; security measures and the risk that they may not be sufficient to secure our member data adequately or that we are subject to attacks that degrade or deny the ability of members to access our solutions; expectations regarding our ability to timely and effectively scale and adapt existing technology and network infrastructure to ensure that our solutions are accessible at all times with short or no perceptible load times; our ability to maintain our rate of revenue growth and manage our expenses and investment plans; our ability to accurately track our key metrics internally; members and customers curtailing or ceasing to use our solutions; our core value of putting members first, which may conflict with the short-term interests of the business; privacy, security and data transfer concerns, as well as changes in regulations, which could impact our ability to serve our members or curtail our monetization efforts; litigation and regulatory issues; increasing competition; our ability to manage our growth; our international operations; our ability to recruit and retain our employees; the application of US and international tax laws on our tax structure and any changes to such tax laws; acquisitions we have made or may make in the future; and the dual class structure of our Class A common stock.

    Further information on these and other factors that could affect the company’s financial results is included in filings it makes with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, including the section entitled “Risk Factors” in the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014, and additional information will also be set forth in our Form 10-Q that will be filed for the quarter ended September 30, 2015, which should be read in conjunction with these financial results. These documents are or will be available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Relations page of the company’s website at http://investors.linkedin.com/. All information provided in this release and in the attachments is as of October 29, 2015, and LinkedIn undertakes no duty to update this information.

    Image via LinkedIn

  • Yelp Earnings Please Investors

    Yelp just released its financial results for Q3, beating Wall Street expectations with revenue of $143.6 million, and earnings per share of $0.03. Net revenue was up 40% year over year.

    Yelp’s cumulative reviews grew 35% year over year reaching 90 million while app unique devices grew 39% to about 20 million on a monthly average basis.

    Local advertising accounts grew 37% year over year to about 104,200. Local ad revenue totaled $115.9 million for the quarter.

    Transactions revenue was $12 million and brand advertising revenue was $9 million. Other revenue was $6.7 million.

    CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said, “We executed well this quarter. Consumers are increasingly discovering our app, which represents approximately 70% of engagement across our entire ecosystem. We believe that our highly engaging app, combined with our native local advertising products that generate high ROI for our customers, strongly positions us to capture the large market opportunity.”

    “We are pleased with our 40% year over year revenue growth,” added CFO Rob Krolik. “We are investing in the business through our marketing programs and continued sales team growth as we work to achieve our goal of becoming the leading destination for consumers connecting with great local businesses.”

    Yelp shares quickly jumped 7% in after hours trading upon the release.

    Here’s the release in its entirety:

    SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 28, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — Yelp Inc. (NYSE: YELP), the company that connects consumers with great local businesses, today announced financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2015.

    Yelp logo
    • Net revenue was $143.6 million in the third quarter of 2015 reflecting 40% growth over the third quarter of 2014.
    • Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of 2015 was $12.5 million compared to $20.1 million in the third quarter of 2014.
    • Cumulative reviews grew 35% year over year to approximately 90 million.
    • App Unique Devices grew 39% year over year to approximately 20 million on a monthly average basis1.
    • Local advertising accounts grew 37% year over year to approximately 104,2002.

    Net loss in the third quarter of 2015 was $(8.1) million, or $(0.11) per share, compared to a net income of $3.6 million, or $0.05 per share, in the third quarter of 2014.

    Non-GAAP net income, which consists of net income excluding stock-based compensation and amortization was$2.7 million, or $0.03 per share, for the third quarter of 2015.

    Net revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 was $396.0 million, an increase of 48% compared to$267.6 million in the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 was$51.6 million compared to $45.8 million in the first nine months of 2014. Net loss for the nine months endedSeptember 30, 2015 was $(10.7) million, or $(0.14) per share, compared to net income of $3.7 million, or $0.05per share, in the comparable period in 2014. Non-GAAP net income for the nine months ended September 30, 2015 was $19.9 million, or $0.26 per share, compared to non-GAAP net income of $25.8 million, or $0.34 per share, in the comparable period in 2014.

    “We executed well this quarter,” said Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp’s chief executive officer. “Consumers are increasingly discovering our app, which represents approximately 70% of engagement across our entire ecosystem. We believe that our highly engaging app, combined with our native local advertising products that generate high ROI for our customers, strongly positions us to capture the large market opportunity.”

    “We are pleased with our 40% year over year revenue growth,” added Rob Krolik, Yelp’s chief financial officer. “We are investing in the business through our marketing programs and continued sales team growth as we work to achieve our goal of becoming the leading destination for consumers connecting with great local businesses.”

    Third Quarter Operating Summary

    • Local advertising revenue totaled $115.9 million, representing 36% growth compared to the third quarter of 2014.
    • Transactions revenue totaled $12.0 million, compared to $1.3 million in the third quarter of 2014, primarily due to the acquisition of Eat24 in the first quarter of 2015.
    • Brand advertising revenue totaled $9.0 million, representing a 4% decrease compared to the third quarter of 2014. As previously announced, Yelp plans to phase out its brand advertising product by the end of 2015 to continue its focus on the consumer experience and its native, local advertising products.
    • Other revenue totaled $6.7 million which was flat compared to the third quarter of 2014.

    Business Highlights

    • Mobile Traffic: Consumer adoption of the Yelp app remained strong, as App Unique Devices grew 39% year over year to 20 million. According to comScore data for September 2015, Yelp was one of the top 25 mobile web and app properties.
    • Engagement: Consumers continued to engage with Yelp across the entire ecosystem as page views grew nearly 40% year over year. Similar to the second quarter, app users were our most engaged users and approximately 70% of page views came from the mobile app.
    • Transactions: In the third quarter, Yelp Platform transactions increased approximately 170% year over year. Yelp launched multiple features to enhance the transaction experience on Yelp, such as the ability to order food or make reservations directly from search results, which resulted in more than a 10% lift in Yelp Platform transactions in the month following the change.

    Business Outlook

    Yelp is providing its outlook for the fourth quarter and updated outlook for the full year of 2015.

    • For the fourth quarter of 2015, net revenue is expected to be in the range of $149.5 million to $154.5 million, representing growth of approximately 38% at the midpoint compared to the fourth quarter of 2014. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $20 million to $24 million. Stock-based compensation is expected to be in the range of $16 million to $17 million, and depreciation and amortization is expected to be 5%-6% of revenue.
    • For the full year of 2015, net revenue is expected to be in the range of $545.5 million to $551.5 million, representing growth of approximately 45% at the midpoint compared to full year 2014. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $72 million to $76 million. Stock-based compensation is expected to be in the range of $61 million to $63 million, and depreciation and amortization is expected to be 5%-6% of revenue.

    Quarterly Conference Call

    To access the call, please dial 1 (800) 708-4539, or outside the U.S. 1 (847) 619-6396, with Passcode 40935655, at least five minutes prior to the 1:30 p.m. PT start time.  A live webcast of the call will also be available at http://www.yelp-ir.com under the Events & Presentations menu.  An audio replay will be available between 4:00 p.m. PT October 28, 2015 and 11:59 p.m. PT November 4, 2015 by calling 1 (888) 843-7419 or 1 (630) 652-3042, with Passcode 40935655.  The replay will also be available on the Company’s website at http://www.yelp-ir.com.

    About Yelp

    Yelp Inc. (http://www.yelp.com) connects people with great local businesses. Yelp was founded in San Franciscoin July 2004. Since then, Yelp communities have taken hold in major metros across 32 countries. Approximately 89 million unique visitors visited Yelp via their mobile device3, including 20 million unique devices accessing the Yelp app1, and approximately 79 million unique visitors visited Yelp via a desktop computer4 on a monthly average basis during the third quarter of 2015. By the end of the same quarter, Yelpers had written approximately 90 million rich, local reviews, making Yelp the leading local guide for real word-of-mouth on everything from boutiques and mechanics to restaurants and dentists.

    1 Calculated as the number of unique devices accessing the app on a monthly average basis over a given three-month period, according to internal Yelp logs.

    2 Local advertising accounts comprise all local business accounts from which we recognize local advertising revenue in a given three-month period.

    3 Calculated as the number of “users,” as measured by Google Analytics, accessing Yelp via mobile web plus unique devices accessing the app, each on a monthly average basis over a given three-month period.

    4 Calculated as the number of “users,” as measured by Google Analytics, accessing Yelp via desktop computer on an average monthly basis over a given three-month period.

    Non-GAAP Financial Measures

    This press release includes information relating to adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP net income per share, each of which the Securities and Exchange Commission has defined as a “non-GAAP financial measure.” Adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP net income per share have been included in this press release because they are key measures used by Yelp management and board of directors to understand and evaluate core operating performance and trends, to prepare and approve its annual budget and to develop short- and long-term operational plans. The presentation of this financial information, which is not prepared under any comprehensive set of accounting rules or principles, is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (“GAAP”).

    Adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP net income have limitations as analytical tools, and you should not consider them in isolation or as substitutes for analysis of Yelp’s financial results as reported under GAAP. Some of these limitations are:

    • although depreciation and amortization are non-cash charges, the assets being depreciated and amortized may have to be replaced in the future, and adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP net income do not reflect cash capital expenditure requirements for such replacements or for new capital expenditure requirements;
    • adjusted EBITDA does not reflect changes in, or cash requirements for, Yelp’s working capital needs;
    • adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP net income do not consider the potentially dilutive impact of equity-based compensation;
    • adjusted EBITDA does not reflect tax payments that may represent a reduction in cash available to Yelp; and
    • other companies, including those in Yelp’s industry, may calculate adjusted EBITDA and non-GAAP net income differently, which reduces their usefulness as comparative measures.

    Because of these limitations, you should consider adjusted EBITDA, non-GAAP net income and non-GAAP net income per share alongside other financial performance measures, including various cash flow metrics, net income (loss) and Yelp’s other GAAP results. Additionally, Yelp has not reconciled its adjusted EBITDA outlook for the fourth quarter and full year 2015 to its net income (loss) outlook because it does not provide an outlook for other income (expense) and provision for income taxes, which are reconciling items between net income (loss) and adjusted EBITDA. As items that impact net income (loss) are out of Yelp’s control and cannot be reasonably predicted, Yelp is unable to provide such an outlook. Accordingly, reconciliation to net income (loss) outlook for the fourth quarter and full year 2015 is not available without unreasonable effort. For a reconciliation of historical non-GAAP financial measures to the nearest comparable GAAP measures, see the non-GAAP reconciliations included below in this press release.

    Forward-Looking Statements

    This press release contains forward-looking statements relating to, among other things, the future performance of Yelp and its consolidated subsidiaries that are based on Yelp’s current expectations, forecasts and assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding expected financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2015, Yelp’s ability to capture a meaningful share of the large local market, Yelp’s expectations regarding local advertising as the primary driver of growth, Yelp’s estimates regarding local advertisers’ ROI on advertising spend, the future growth in Yelp revenue and continued investing by Yelp in its future growth, Yelp’s ability to drive daily usage and engagement (particularly on mobile), increase awareness of Yelp among consumers, and deliver value to local businesses, Yelp’s ability to take advantage of trends toward app usage and native advertising and to become the leading destination for consumers connecting with great local businesses. Yelp’s actual results could differ materially from those predicted or implied and reported results should not be considered as an indication of future performance. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: Yelp’s short operating history in an evolving industry; Yelp’s ability to generate sufficient revenue to maintain profitability, particularly in light of its significant ongoing sales and marketing expenses; Yelp’s ability to successfully manage acquisitions of new businesses, solutions or technologies, such as Eat24, and to integrate those businesses, solutions or technologies; Yelp’s reliance on traffic to its website from search engines like Google and Bing; Yelp’s ability to generate and maintain sufficient high quality content from its users; maintaining a strong brand and managing negative publicity that may arise; maintaining and expanding Yelp’s base of advertisers; changes in political, business and economic conditions, including any European or general economic downturn or crisis and any conditions that affect ecommerce growth; fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; Yelp’s  ability to deal with the increasingly competitive local search environment; Yelp’s need and ability to manage other regulatory, tax and litigation risks as its services are offered in more jurisdictions and applicable laws become more restrictive; the competitive and regulatory environment while Yelp continues to expand geographically and introduce new products and as new laws and regulations related to Internet companies come into effect; Yelp’s ability to timely upgrade and develop its systems, infrastructure and customer service capabilities. The forward-looking statements in this release do not include the potential impact of any acquisitions or divestitures that may be announced and/or completed after the date hereof.

    More information about factors that could affect Yelp’s operating results is included under the captions “Risk Factors” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” in Yelp’s most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q at http://www.yelp-ir.com or the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements in this release, which are based on information available to Yelp on the date hereof. Yelp assumes no obligation to update such statements.

    Investor Relations Contact Information
    Wendy Lim, Allie Dalglish
    (415) 635-2412
    [email protected]

     

    Yelp Inc.
    Condensed Consolidated Balance Sheets
    (In thousands)
    (Unaudited)
    September 30, December 31,
    2015 2014
    Assets
    Current assets:
    Cash and cash equivalents $         171,807 $        247,312
    Short-term marketable securities 197,132 118,498
    Accounts receivable, net 46,942 35,593
    Prepaid expenses and other current assets 31,952 19,355
    Total current assets 447,833 420,758
    Long-term marketable securities 38,612
    Property, equipment and software, net 78,342 62,761
    Goodwill 173,996 67,307
    Intangibles, net 41,068 5,786
    Restricted cash 16,253 17,943
    Other assets 6,913 16,483
    Total assets $         764,405 $        629,650
    Liabilities  and stockholders’ equity
    Current liabilities:
    Accounts payable $             3,305 $            1,398
    Accrued liabilities 49,246 29,581
    Deferred revenue 2,543 2,994
    Total current liabilities 55,094 33,973
    Long-term liabilities 12,849 7,527
    Total liabilities 67,943 41,500
    Stockholders’ equity
    Common stock
    Additional paid-in capital 752,795 627,742
    Accumulated other comprehensive loss (11,679) (5,609)
    Accumulated deficit (44,654) (33,983)
    Total stockholders’ equity 696,462 588,150
    Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity $          764,405 $         629,650

     

    Yelp Inc.
    Condensed Consolidated Statements of Operations
    (In thousands, except per share amounts)
    (Unaudited)
    Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended
    September 30, September 30,
    2015 2014 2015 2014
    Net revenue $ 143,559 $ 102,455 $ 395,980 $ 267,649
    Costs and expenses
    Cost of revenue (1) 14,259 6,174 36,015 17,096
    Sales and marketing (1) 82,949 54,551 214,229 147,470
    Product development (1) 28,511 17,397 78,816 46,105
    General and administrative (1) 20,990 15,185 60,207 41,612
    Depreciation and amortization 7,562 4,604 21,624 12,299
    Total costs and expenses 154,271 97,911 410,891 264,582
    Income (loss) from operations (10,712) 4,544 (14,911) 3,067
    Other income (expense), net (545) 200 346 183
    Income (loss) before income taxes (11,257) 4,744 (14,565) 3,250
    Benefit (provision) for income taxes 3,175 (1,107) 3,894 495
    Net income (loss) attributable to common stockholders $   (8,082) $     3,637 $ (10,671) $     3,745
    Net income (loss) per share attributable to common stockholders:
    Basic $     (0.11) $       0.05 $     (0.14) $       0.05
    Diluted $     (0.11) $       0.05 $     (0.14) $       0.05
    Weighted-average shares used to compute net income (loss) per share attributable to common stockholders:
    Basic 75,019 72,195 74,450 71,697
    Diluted 75,019 77,296 74,450 76,732
    (1) Includes stock-based compensation expense as follows:
    Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended
    September 30, September 30,
    2015 2014 2015 2014
    Cost of revenue $        435 $        253 $        781 $        522
    Sales and marketing 5,568 3,883 16,159 11,008
    Product development 5,947 3,835 17,117 10,333
    General and administrative 3,733 2,947 10,813 8,594
    Total stock-based compensation $   15,683 $   10,918 $   44,870 $   30,457

     

    Yelp Inc.
    Condensed Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows
    (In thousands)
    (Unaudited)
    Nine Months Ended
    September 30,
    2015 2014
    Operating activities
    Net income (loss) $ (10,671) $    3,745
    Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to net cash provided by operating activities:
    Depreciation and amortization 21,624 12,299
    Provision for doubtful accounts and sales returns 10,401 3,894
    Stock-based compensation 44,870 30,457
    Loss (gain) on disposal of assets and website development costs 130 (5)
    Premium amortization, net, on securities held-to-maturity 827 214
    Excess tax benefit from share-based award activity (4,298) (899)
    Realized gain on investments (2) (2)
    Changes in operating assets and liabilities:
    Accounts receivable (17,773) (13,772)
    Prepaid expenses and other assets (15,057) (7,338)
    Accounts payable, accrued expenses and other liabilities 23,904 10,899
    Deferred revenue (428) (453)
    Net cash provided by operating activities 53,527 39,039
    Investing activities
    Acquisition, net of cash received (73,422)
    Purchases of property, equipment and software (25,358) (12,743)
    Capitalized website and software development costs (8,658) (7,969)
    Change in restricted cash 1,664 (9,756)
    Purchase of intangible assets (647) (1,334)
    Proceeds from sale of property and equipment 109 14
    Purchases of investment securities held-to-maturity (172,717) (148,359)
    Maturities of investment securities held-to-maturity 131,870 21,000
    Net cash used in investing activities (147,159) (159,147)
    Financing activities
    Proceeds from exercise of employee stock options 9,889 17,316
    Proceeds from issuance of common stock for Employee Stock Purchase Plan 5,061 4,087
    Excess tax benefit from stock-based award activity 4,298 899
    Repurchase of common stock (482) (1,035)
    Net cash provided by financing activities 18,766 21,267
    Effect of exchange rate changes on cash and cash equivalents (639) (356)
    Net decrease in cash and cash equivalents (75,505) (99,197)
    Cash and cash equivalents at beginning of period 247,312 389,764
    Cash and cash equivalents at end of period $ 171,807 $ 290,567

     

    Yelp Inc.
    Reconciliation of GAAP to Non-GAAP Financial Measures
    (In thousands)
    (Unaudited)
    Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended
    September 30, September 30,
    2015 2014 2015 2014
    Adjusted EBITDA:
    Net income (loss) $ (8,082) $   3,637 $ (10,671) $   3,745
    (Benefit) provision for income taxes (3,175) 1,107 (3,894) (495)
    Other (income) expense, net 545 (200) (346) (183)
    Depreciation and amortization 7,562 4,604 21,624 12,299
    Stock-based compensation 15,683 10,918 44,870 30,457
    Adjusted EBITDA $ 12,533 $ 20,066 $  51,583 $ 45,823
    Non-GAAP Net Income (Loss) and income (Loss) per share:
    GAAP net income (loss) $ (8,082) $   3,637  

    $ (10,671)

     

    $   3,745

       Add back: stock-based compensation 15,683 10,918 44,870 30,457
       Add back: amortization of intangible assets 1,723 643 4,757 1,898
       Less: tax effect of stock-based compensation
       & amortization of intangible assets (6,650) (4,333) (19,026) (12,232)
       Add back: valuation allowance release (net of tax) 1,958
    Non-GAAP Net Income $   2,674 $ 10,865 $  19,930 $ 25,826
    GAAP diluted shares 77,704 77,296 77,934 76,732
    Non-GAAP Net Income per share $     0.03 $     0.14 $      0.26 $     0.34

    Images via Yelp

  • Amazon Is Ramping Up TV-Commerce

    Amazon is about to make a huge push into TV-commerce.

    Here’s the scenario: You’re using your Amazon Fire TV, catching up on episodes of The Good Wife. You spot an incredible pair of shoes. OMG, you say. I must have those. Then, with the help of Amazon, you have them at your doorstep in an hour.

    Amazon has already started testing specific product ads inside the Fire TV experience – mostly for candy and Fitbits. But according to a report from GeekWire Amazon is about to turn the TV shopping game up a few notches.

    From GeekWire:

    Amazon is looking to integrate products into its X-Ray feature, which currently leverages Amazon’s IMDb subsidiary to display details about shows such as the actors and music. Product integration with X-Ray will let viewers see specific items in a movie or TV show, and then click to easily purchase those products for themselves.

    Not only that, but Amazon is reportedly developing its own, QVC-like shopping channel. You see something you like, you order it in a couple of clicks.

    And with Amazon’s Prime Now one-hour delivery service (only available in a few markets as of now), you can see how the above scenario is very plausible.

    Amazon makes its money when you buy things. That’s the idea behind its most popular service, Amazon Prime. If Amazon can get more purchasing opportunities into the TV experience, the place where many people spend the most leisure time, it’s a no-brainer.

  • Buy Buttons And The Future Of B2B Ecommerce

    Buy Buttons And The Future Of B2B Ecommerce

    There’s been a lot of news about buy buttons on social sites for the past year or so, particularly on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. In the months ahead, users of these services are likely going to see more and more of the buttons popping up in their feeds.

    Twitter recently announced that businesses of all sizes can try out the Buy Now option as it partnered with three ecommerce platform heavyweights in an effort to make the social shopping experience more seamless.

    As more and more businesses gain access to these kinds of features, they’re going to have to test the waters cautiously as to not alienate users and to make sure they actually are providing a good experience.

    Rick Chavie, CEO at data solutions provider Enterworks, tells WebProNews, “The concept of buy buttons makes sense at first glance – consumers are increasingly digitally focused and brands are wise to engage with them on the platforms that they frequent. However, the authenticity of these sites is the differential that made them popular.”

    “Brands that bombard shoppers with marketing material, making social sites less about collaboration and more about commerce, risk creating over-commercialization,” he adds. “There are definitely benefits to the integration of buy buttons but, in order for brands to preserve an authentic social presence while implementing buy buttons, three practices must be in play.”

    These practices, as Chavie puts them, are as follows:

    1. Use data to better predict and target customers who are ready to buy.

    2. Be strategic about the products embedded with direct-to-purchase links.

    3. Test the strategy using a small group of consumers, see what sticks, then adapt as necessary.

    CloudCraze recently teamed up with Salesforce in what a spokesperson describes as “a similar pursuit to make the B2B buying process more convenient and seamless for its clients’ customers.”

    CloudCraze CEO Chris Dalton shared some thoughts about the overarching trend on what the B2B space can expect to see in the coming years as ecommerce partnerships and platform integrations continue to “redesign the once very straight-forward and distinguished B2C and B2B buying experience.”

    “As professionals in the eCommerce space, we’ve all witnessed firsthand the growing demand for a seamless, connected user experience,” Dalton tells us. “The needs and expectations for B2B buyers are vastly different than those in B2C, but the B2B buyers are looking for the same ease of use they get with their personal B2C purchases. Similar technologies are being developed to power both experiences.”

    “With the introduction of eCommerce platforms for businesses to meet customer demands, a more integrated and scalable end-to-end process from factory to storefront has become a reality in the marketplace,” he adds. “Scalable, affordable platforms exist that can help B2B companies improve communication, increase production efficiency, and simplify the purchase process. One example we are already seeing gain traction is the integration of ‘buy’ buttons, allowing buyers to make purchases in context, rather than redirecting them through multiple sites before they make the final purchase. Taking cues from the B2C eCommerce marketplace, I expect we will see a fast growth in the adoption of in-context commerce technology in the B2B market.”

    “While B2B is still in its pioneer stages of online sales compared to the maturity of its B2C cousin, B2B marketers actually have the advantage in the long term over that of B2C, as their customer profile is much deeper and more robust,” Dalton says. “With more background information to effectively address buyers’ needs, B2B companies will be able to integrate more intuitive and catered targeted marketing campaigns into the customer’s end-to-end buying experience that span from the research stages to the purchase. There is great potential for in-context commerce in the B2B market.”

    In addition to CloudCraze, Salesforce recently made ecommerce partnerships with Bigcommerce and Demandware.

    Image via Twitter

  • If This Works For Twitter, Businesses Stand To Benefit

    If This Works For Twitter, Businesses Stand To Benefit

    It looks like Twitter is betting big on its recently launched Moments feature to help it grow its user base, which continues to grow at the rate of a snail’s pace. Whether or not marketers are able to benefit directly from the feature, everyone stands to gain something out of Twitter increasing its user base.

    Will Moments finally help Twitter kickstart its growth and benefit businesses using the platform for marketing purposes? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    The company is getting a lot of attention for running a television ad during the World Series. It’s not the first time Twitter has advertised on TV (that was in 2013 during a NASCAR race), but it’s not something the company has been doing regularly.

    Under constant pressure from shareholders and industry analysts (not to mention the ouster of CEO Dick Costolo) to pick up the pace on growth, Twitter is trying its damnedest to launch more products and features and make it easier for the general public to understand what they’re missing out on by not using Twitter.

    The new ad focuses specifically on Moments, as did a conference call held to discuss Twitter’s Q3 earnings release on Tuesday to a great extent.

    Just What Are Twitter Moments?

    Twitter unveiled Moments earlier this month. Basically, moments are curated stories made up of tweets, images, vines, videos, and GIFs. They are curated by Twitter and by select partners, which include Bleacher Report, Buzzfeed, Entertainment Weekly, Fox News, Getty Images, Mashable, MLB, NASA, New York Times, Vogue and the Washington Post. The number of curators will expand over time.

    Twitter users can access and follow specific stories from the new Moments tab, which features a lightning bolt icon. New stories appear throughout the day and are continuously updated and organized by topics like entertainment, sports, etc.

    For now, the feature is available to U.S. users on Android, iOS, and the web. Users outside of the country can view moments if someone shared one with them.

    Promoted Moments

    It didn’t take long for Twitter to turn Moments into a potential ad product. This was no doubt the plan from the beginning, but it took the company a couple of weeks to mention that part.

    Promoted Moments made their debut this past weekend. This is a new native ad format that it is now testing with certain partners.

    “We’re seeing how powerful this experience can be for diving into meaningful narratives — and since Twitter’s inception, brands have told some of the very best stories on the platform,” said Twitter brand strategy manager Bobby Grasberger. “Promoted Moments, like all of our ad products, will look and feel just like all other Moments — except they’ll be authored by a brand and be featured in the Moments guide for 24 hours, with a Promoted badge.”

    The first one came from MGM, Warner Bros, and New Line Cinema for the movie Creed. The ad debuted on Twitter on Sunday.

    Why Twitter Thinks Moments Will Work

    As mentioned, this is not a feature that Twitter is taking lightly. A great deal of the earnings call dealt with Moments, which CEO Jack Dorsey referred to as “the best of what’s happening on Twitter in an instant” and the “simplest way to see what’s happening in the world, all organized by topic.”

    He noted that it’s still early and the company is collecting feedback on the feature, but that they’ve already seen how it has improved Twitter. He went on to talk about the Moment for the Toronto Blue Jays series clinching win over the Texas Rangers during the playoffs, which he said showed the best places, commentary, and passion from fans after a go-ahead home run.

    Dorsey also talked about The Washington Post Paris Fashion Week Moment, which he said put people front row for designs fro a premiere fashion event as well as Mashable’s Moment of the South Carolina floods, which he said “brought home in a very visceral way the extent of flood damage” and how residents recover.

    He also noted how Moments are not only on Twitter in the Moments tab, but that they’re embedded all over the web, and that’s always been a key component of visibility for Twitter content.

    Even before Twitter let users embed tweets, the media would display images of Tweets, whether on television or in web articles.

    Dorsey said Twitter’s focus with Moments is currently to make them easier to discover and get people into them right when they open Twitter. Hence the TV ad.

    Rolling the feature out beyond the U.S. is also a priority.

    “Moments is just the start of bolder simplification efforts you will see on Twitter,” Dorsey said during the call. “I’ve challenged our teams to look beyond assumptions about what makes Twitter the best play to share what’s happening. I’m confident our ideals will result in the service that’s far easier to understand and much more powerful.”

    COO Adam Bain said that in Q4, Twitter will be opening up a new video focused inventory with the launch of Promoted Moments.

    “It’s designed to be a great platform for marketers to tell their stories, especially video centric narratives,” he said, noting that last weekend’s Creed campaign generated awareness and anticipation of the film by curating videos and tweets.

    The goal for Promoted Moments, he said, is to learn alongside marketers. According to Bain, demand for the format is strong and the company will be “deliberate” in its approach with a limited series for “quality consumer experience above all else.”

    During the testing phase, consumers will not see Promoted Moments every day.

    Twitter CFO Anthony Noto noted that the company is excited about the potential of Moments as “a fully integrated launch across all cross-functions”. This, he said, is something the company has been saying it needs to do in order to “capture the next cohort of users to use Twitter.”

    “Specifically we want to not just with engineering product and design but also an integrated team across marketing, coms, content and media,” he said. “If you’ve been online or on mobile, you’ll see your digital video ads, you will see our paid search ads, you will see our display ads and more to come on the marketing and content and media front. So we’re excited about all of those things and opportunity Moments brings to simplify our product and make it much easier to communicate our marketing.”

    Noto said Twitter has “opportunities to optimize across marketing channels and content quality and our choice and selection on content.”

    “The one other thing I’d just point out from a metric standpoint and I want to make sure investors really appreciate this point is Moments by itself is simplifying our product, but there are many features within Moments that leverage the strength of Twitter, the social aspects of Twitter and the strength of our open communication network,” Noto continued. “So the retweet, the share, and the favorite, you can retweet, you can share, and you favorite within Moments and what that does is it provides content back to all your followers in their home timeline enhancing their experience. So Moments is about driving adoption without a doubt and engagement, but it’s also about reinforcing the quality and strength of every node in our network and so we’re also focused on those things.”

    Dorsey chimed in again, “Moments represents a real fundamental shift in our thinking and the reason why is a lot of Twitter is organized by a reverse chronological timeline. We make people do a bunch of work to find the right accounts to follow and then they actually see the world through those accounts. What Moments does is you can open it up, you can actually see everything that’s happened in the world, that’s most meaningful, it’s organized by topics, so you see topics first. You tap in to each one of those Moments and you can actually see really unique insight and commentary on the particular event that you’re interested in.”

    He later referred to Moments as “one of those bold new experiences that I think does question a bunch of our fundamentals around making Twitter a whole lot easier to understand.”

    As far as Moments rolling out to the rest of the world, Dorsey said the company has an international rollout strategy for the product, but that it doesn’t want to pre-announce any markets. He said they just want to get it to everyone in the world as quickly as they can.

    “What I will tell you is that we want to build in the learnings from our launch in the U.S. and do it in an integrated way, the way we have in the U.S. in each one of those markets, so more to come,” he said.

    According to Noto, Moments is only the first of other product changes on the horizon that are fundamental to attracting more users and simplifying Twitter.

    Twitter is claiming 307 million monthly active users in Q3. That’s only a gain of 3 million from Q2.

    If Twitter can kickstart growth, it means more eyeballs for businesses on Twitter whether than means more followers or more visibility for promoted tweets, not to mention increased potential for any ecommerce endeavors – another area where Twitter is finally growing.

    Do you believe Twitter can convince more people to start using its services with Moments and other product launches? Do you think businesses will benefit from a growing user base? Discuss.

    Image via Twitter, Earnings call quotes via SeekingAlpha

  • Amazon Could Launch Its Own Clothing Line

    Amazon has spent years building up its Fashion division, providing a marketplace for other companies’ clothes. Now, Amazon is looking to sell their own clothing.

    Remarks from VP of clothing at Amazon Fashion Jeff Yurcisin indicate that Amazon wants to fill in the gaps, and offer its own private label items when other brands have declined to sell on the site.

    From BuzzFeed:

    “For Amazon, we know our customers love brands, many of the brands in this room…and that’s where the lion’s share of our business comes from,” Jeff Yurcisin, vice president of clothing at Amazon Fashion and CEO of Amazon’s Shopbop unit, said at the WWD Apparel and Retail CEO Summit on Tuesday. “When we see gaps, when certain brands have actually decided for their own reasons not to sell with us, our customer still wants a product like that.” Amazon may get into private-label for those kinds of goods, he added.

    In a way, this announcement feels inevitable.

    Amazon already sells items from big name brands like Calvin Klein, Carter’s, Jessica Simpson, Levi’s, kate spade new york, Nautica, New Balance, PUMA, Roxy, and Steve Madden.

    But not every top fashion brand is eager to get in bed with Amazon.

    Take this, from a recent New York Times article on Fashion Week:

    While fashion companies like these are drawn to Amazon’s huge reach — more than 40 million United States customers have made clothing, shoes or accessories purchases in the last 12 months on Amazon.com, Ms. Beaudoin said — many are concerned about tying their brands to a website that is far more a utility than a boutique…

    …The concerns mainly involve the presentation of the pieces on the site and the pricing. Legally, a wholesaler cannot insist that a retailer sell an item for a certain price. But a company like Lacoste does not want to offer its products on a website that may slash its prices (as Amazon does with books and other products) such that its brand comes off as down-market.

    So, when Amazon has a fashion gap, it can fill it with its own product.

  • Etsy ASAP Lets Users Get Same-Day Delivery

    Etsy ASAP Lets Users Get Same-Day Delivery

    Etsy announced the launch of Etsy ASAP as a limited pilot in areas of New York City, giving shoppers the ability to have items delivered on the same or next day for a flat fee of $20.

    “This pilot, slated to run through the holiday season, arrives on the heels of the new Etsy Local mobile experience, which helps shoppers on-the-go find Etsy items and sellers nearby at events or local shops, and is the latest example of Etsy’s efforts to foster and grow local marketplaces,” an Etsy spokesperson tells WebProNews.

    According to the company, over half of buyers it surveyed said they would use Etsy ASAP for last minute gifts.

    “We are excited to bring these new services to the Etsy community–they will improve the shopping experience while offering new ways for sellers to connect with and grow their customer base,” the spokesperson says. “Etsy ASAP, like Etsy Local, will encourage more opportunities for person-to-person commerce and offer a solution for last minute shopping needs, in a way that benefits the whole community.”

    When a user selects Etsy ASAP during the checkout process, they’ll be able to choose from three-hour delivery windows based on seller availability. Orders placed after 7PM are eligible for next-day delivery rather than same-day.

    You can browse items currently eligible for Etsy ASAP here. There are over 5,000 products currently available to those residing in the right areas.

    Searches on Etsy can be filtered to only display items eligible. More about the service on the Etsy blog.

    Images via Etsy

  • Amazon Q3 Earnings Reported; Sales up 23% to $25.4 Billion

    Amazon released its Q3 earnings report, including a 23% increase in sales year-over-year at $25.4 billion.

    Net income was $79 million ($0.17 per diluted share) , compared with net loss of $437 million, or $0.95 per diluted share, in third quarter 2014.

    Operating cash flow was up 72% at $9.8 billion with free cash flow increasing to $5.4 billion.

    CEO Jeff Bezos said, “For the first time, we’re recommending you bring home a six-pack for the whole family. At a price of $50 for one or $250 for a six-pack, Fire sets a new bar for what customers should expect from a low-cost tablet. This is one more step in our mission to bring customers premium products at non-premium prices. Fire is the #1 best-selling product on Amazon.com since launch, and based on the strength of the customer response, we are building millions more than we’d already planned.”

    Here’s the release in its entirety:

    SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Oct. 22, 2015– Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2015.

    Operating cash flow increased 72% to $9.8 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $5.7 billion for the trailing twelve months ended September 30, 2014. Free cash flow increased to $5.4 billion for the trailing twelve months, compared with $1.1 billion for the trailing twelve months ended September 30, 2014. Additional measures of free cash flow can be found in the “Supplemental Financial Information and Business Metrics.”

    Common shares outstanding plus shares underlying stock-based awards totaled 489 million on September 30, 2015, compared with 481 million one year ago.

    Net sales increased 23% to $25.4 billion in the third quarter, compared with $20.6 billion in third quarter 2014. Excluding the $1.3 billion unfavorable impact from year-over-year changes in foreign exchange rates throughout the quarter, net sales increased 30% compared to third quarter 2014.

    Operating income was $406 million in the third quarter, compared with operating loss of $544 million in third quarter 2014.

    Net income was $79 million in the third quarter, or $0.17 per diluted share, compared with net loss of $437 million, or $0.95 per diluted share, in third quarter 2014.

    “For the first time, we’re recommending you bring home a six-pack for the whole family,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. “At a price of$50 for one or $250 for a six-pack, Fire sets a new bar for what customers should expect from a low-cost tablet. This is one more step in our mission to bring customers premium products at non-premium prices. Fire is the #1 best-selling product on Amazon.com since launch, and based on the strength of the customer response, we are building millions more than we’d already planned.”

    Highlights

    • Amazon introduced four new tablets, including Fire, which has the best display on any tablet under $50 and is also available for an even lower price when purchased in a six-pack; Fire HD, the incredibly thin and light 8” and 10.1” tablets designed from the ground up for entertainment; and Fire Kids Edition, a tablet built for kids and their parents — now under $100.
    • Amazon introduced three new Fire TV devices, all with Alexa integration. The new Fire TV is 75% more powerful and has the best-in-class Wi-Fi and 4K Ultra HD — and is still less than $100. The new Fire TV Stick with Voice Remote adds voice search — and costs less than $50. Fire TV Gaming Edition combines the new Fire TV, new game controller, a 32GB microSD card, and two games — Shovel Knight and Disney’s DuckTales — all for under $140.
    • Amazon launched Fire TV and Fire TV Stick for Japanese customers, which provides easy, instant access to Prime Video, Amazon Video, Hulu, GYAO!, Netflix, YouTube.com, Niconico, Video Market, and more. In addition to the device, Amazon launched Prime Video on Amazon.co.jp, exclusively for Prime members, with thousands of popular Japanese and U.S. movies and TV shows, anime series, music concerts, and variety shows, plus Amazon’s own award-winning originals.
    • Alexa, the brain behind Echo, continues to get smarter with new features including support for shared Google calendars, integration of additional connected home devices from SmartThings and Insteon, NCAA football scores and schedules, and more.
    • Amazon announced new investments from the $100 million Alexa Fund, including Petnet, the creator of the SmartFeeder, an app-enabled intelligent feeding appliance; Musaic, a high-resolution wireless HiFi system that combines home automation to create a connected smart home; and Rachio, maker of a smart sprinkler controller that helps customers intelligently water their yards.
    • Amazon Dash Button has received an overwhelmingly positive customer response and selection continues to grow; customers can now choose from over 500 products from 29 popular brands. Dash Replenishment Service (DRS) now includes 15 device makers, such as General Electric,Samsung, and Oster. The first DRS-enabled devices are expected to ship later this year.
    • Amazon announced Amazon Underground, a new app for Android phones that includes the same functionality of the Amazon mobile shopping app plus over ten thousand dollars’ worth of apps, games, and in-app items, for free.
    • Amazon Studios’ critically-acclaimed series, Transparent, won five Emmys, including Jeffrey Tambor’s award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series and Jill Soloway’s award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series.
    • Amazon announced an agreement with Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, and the trio’s longtime executive producer, Andy Wilman, to make a new car show exclusively for Prime members worldwide. The award-winning team has committed to three seasons.
    • Amazon Studios recently debuted new original series Red Oaks, Hand of God, and Wishenpoof, with more content coming soon, including the much anticipated The Man in the High Castle and season two of Transparent and Tumble Leaf. In addition, Amazon has announced 12 pilots that are scheduled to debut later this year.
    • Amazon.co.uk launched Prime Music, giving U.K. Prime members over one million songs and hundreds of playlists to stream and download for free.
    • Prime Music expanded its catalog in the U.S. and U.K. with the addition of artists from Universal Music Group, including Katy Perry, Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd, Of Monsters and Men, Ellie Goulding, and many more award-winning popular and legendary artists.
    • Prime Now added eight metro areas in the past quarter. Prime members can now choose from tens of thousands of daily essentials with free two-hour and paid one-hour delivery in 17 locations around the world.
    • Amazon launched Amazon Pantry in Japan and Germany. Amazon Pantry offers Prime members a different way to shop, allowing them to purchase daily essentials in everyday sizes and have items delivered for a low, flat-rate fee per Amazon Pantry box.
    • Amazon introduced Handmade at Amazon, featuring genuinely handcrafted products sold directly from artisans around the world.
    • Customers in both the U.K. and France rated Amazon as their top retailer based on separate surveys conducted by Havas and OC&C Strategy Consultants.
    • Amazon continues to expand its international categories with the launch of the Business, Industrial and Scientific Supplies store for Japan, U.K.,Germany, France, Italy, and Spain with hundreds of thousands of items available for businesses. Additionally, Amazon launched Grocery for Italy,France, and Spain with thousands of food products and household essentials from local producers and international brands.
    • Amazon expects to create over 100,000 seasonal positions in North America, and over 40,000 across its European Fulfillment Network this holiday season. Last year, Amazon converted tens of thousands of temporary employees into regular, full-time roles, and expects to do the same this year.
    • Since the fulfillment center tour program launched last year, over 26,000 people have visited one of the 18 facilities where tours are offered worldwide.
    • Launched in late June, Amazon.com.mx has expanded selection to 32 million items, added three new categories, started offering monthly installments for select purchases, and expanded delivery on weekends and holidays to over 70% of zip codes in Mexico City.
    • Amazon.in continues to be India’s largest store with over 30 million products, having added an average of over 40,000 products a day so far in 2015.
    • In the past year, the number of sellers on the Amazon.in platform has increased more than 250%, and nearly 90% of Indian sellers are using Amazon’s logistics and warehousing services. To serve this growing storage need, Amazon.in has nearly tripled its fulfillment capacity year-over-year.
    • In the third quarter, active customers on Amazon.in grew over 230% year-over-year.
    • So far, Amazon.in’s 2015 Diwali season is our largest ever, with daily sales of approximately 4x the prior year.
    • Amazon launched Kindle Unlimited on Amazon.in with over one million titles for 199 rupees a month, less than the average price of a single print book.
    • Amazon Web Services (AWS) hosted re:Invent, its fourth annual customer and partner conference, with more than 19,000 attendees and 38,000 streaming participants.
    • Accenture and AWS announced the formation of the Accenture AWS Business Group, a team of dedicated professionals from both Accenture and AWS that will help enterprise customers more easily migrate their existing applications and build new applications for the AWS Cloud.
    • AWS introduced Amazon QuickSight, a very fast, cloud-powered business intelligence (BI) service that makes it easy for all employees, regardless of their technical skill, to build visualizations, perform ad-hoc analysis, and quickly get business insights from their data at 1/10th the cost of traditional solutions. QuickSight integrates automatically with AWS data services and uses a new, Super-fast, Parallel, In-memory Calculation Engine (“SPICE”) to perform advanced calculations, render visualizations rapidly, and scale to hundreds of thousands of users.
    • AWS launched new capabilities to make it faster, easier, and more cost-effective to move data from on-premises into the AWS Cloud. AWS Snowball is a petabyte-scale data transport appliance that can securely transfer 50 TB of data per appliance into and out of AWS for as little as 1/5th the cost of high-speed Internet. Amazon Kinesis Firehose is a fully-managed service that captures streaming data from hundreds of thousands of different sources and automatically loads it into Amazon S3 or Amazon Redshift for near real-time data analysis.
    • AWS announced new database tools and services that make it easier for enterprises to bring databases to AWS and break free from the cost and complexity of traditional commercial databases. The AWS Database Migration Service monitors the progress of database migrations, notifying customers of any issues and automatically provisioning a host replacement in the event of a failure. The AWS Schema Conversion Tool ports database schemas and stored procedures from one database platform to another, so customers can move their applications from Oracle and SQL Server to Amazon Aurora, MySQL, MariaDB, and soon PostgreSQL. In the first week after AWS re:Invent, more than 1,000 customers have signed up to use AWS’s new Database Migration Service.
    • In just four months since becoming generally available in July, Amazon Aurora has become the fastest-growing service in the history of AWS.
    • AWS launched AWS IoT, a managed cloud platform that lets billions of connected devices — such as mobile phones, cars, factory floors, aircraft engines, sensor grids, and more — easily and securely interact with cloud applications and other devices. AWS IoT can support trillions of messages, and can process, route, and keep track of those messages to AWS endpoints and to other devices reliably and securely, even when the devices aren’t connected.
    • AWS announced three new services and capabilities to make it easier for enterprises to build and manage secure, compliant applications on the AWS Cloud: Amazon Inspector is a service that automatically assesses how well customers’ applications follow security best practices and provides a detailed report to help fix any vulnerabilities found; AWS Config Rules is a new set of cloud governance capabilities that allow IT Administrators to define guidelines for provisioning and configuring AWS resources and then continuously monitor compliance with those guidelines; and AWS WAF is a web application firewall that protects applications from common web exploits by giving customers control over which traffic to allow or block to their web applications by defining customizable web security rules.

    Financial Guidance

    The following forward-looking statements reflect Amazon.com’s expectations as of October 22, 2015, and are subject to substantial uncertainty. Our results are inherently unpredictable and may be materially affected by many factors, such as fluctuations in foreign exchange rates, changes in global economic conditions and customer spending, world events, the rate of growth of the Internet and online commerce, and the various factors detailed below.

    Fourth Quarter 2015 Guidance

    • Net sales are expected to be between $33.50 billion and $36.75 billion, or to grow between 14% and 25% compared with fourth quarter 2014.
    • Operating income is expected to be between $80 million and $1.28 billion, compared to $591 million in fourth quarter 2014.
    • This guidance includes approximately $620 million for stock-based compensation and amortization of intangible assets, and it assumes, among other things, that no additional business acquisitions, investments, restructurings, or legal settlements are concluded and that there are no further revisions to stock-based compensation estimates.

    A conference call will be webcast live today at 2:00 p.m. PT/5:00 p.m. ET, and will be available for at least three months at www.amazon.com/ir. This call will contain forward-looking statements and other material information regarding the Company’s financial and operating results.

    These forward-looking statements are inherently difficult to predict. Actual results could differ materially for a variety of reasons, including, in addition to the factors discussed above, the amount that Amazon.com invests in new business opportunities and the timing of those investments, the mix of products sold to customers, the mix of net sales derived from products as compared with services, the extent to which we owe income taxes, competition, management of growth, potential fluctuations in operating results, international growth and expansion, the outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment, sortation, delivery, and data center optimization, risks of inventory management, seasonality, the degree to which the Company enters into, maintains, and develops commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, payments risks, and risks of fulfillment throughput and productivity. Other risks and uncertainties include, among others, risks related to new products, services, and technologies, system interruptions, government regulation and taxation, and fraud. In addition, the current global economic climate amplifies many of these risks. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com’s financial results is included in Amazon.com’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including its most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent filings.

    Our investor relations website is www.amazon.com/ir and we encourage investors to use it as a way of easily finding information about us. We promptly make available on this website, free of charge, the reports that we file or furnish with the SEC, corporate governance information (including our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics), and select press releases and social media postings, which may contain material information about us, and you may subscribe to be notified of new information posted to this site.

    About Amazon

    Amazon.com opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995. The company is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit www.amazon.com/about.

    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows
    (in millions)
    (unaudited)
    Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended Twelve Months Ended
    September 30, September 30, September 30,
    2015 2014 2015 2014 2015 2014
    CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS, BEGINNING OF PERIOD $ 10,269 $ 5,057 $ 14,557 $ 8,658 $ 5,258 $ 3,872
    OPERATING ACTIVITIES:
    Net income (loss) 79 (437 ) 114 (455 ) 328 (216 )
    Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to net cash from operating activities:
    Depreciation of property and equipment, including internal-use software and website development, and other amortization, including capitalized content costs 1,599 1,247 4,529 3,366 5,908 4,329
    Stock-based compensation 544 377 1,513 1,089 1,921 1,414
    Other operating expense (income), net 34 31 120 93 156 133
    Losses (gains) on sales of marketable securities, net 2 (3 ) 4 (4 ) 4 (3 )
    Other expense (income), net 56 42 166 (16 ) 244 36
    Deferred income taxes (63 ) (270 ) (108 ) (503 ) 76 (613 )
    Excess tax benefits from stock-based compensation (95 ) (212 ) (121 ) (96 ) (199 )
    Changes in operating assets and liabilities:
    Inventories (1,537 ) (845 ) (844 ) (54 ) (1,983 ) (1,383 )
    Accounts receivable, net and other (588 ) (362 ) (577 ) 66 (1,681 ) (1,173 )
    Accounts payable 2,030 1,724 (1,846 ) (3,294 ) 3,207 1,834
    Accrued expenses and other 143 4 (925 ) (742 ) 525 847
    Additions to unearned revenue 1,779 1,069 4,979 3,055 6,358 3,874
    Amortization of previously unearned revenue (1,373 ) (811 ) (3,805 ) (2,353 ) (5,144 ) (3,175 )
    Net cash provided by (used in) operating activities 2,610 1,766 3,108 127 9,823 5,705
    INVESTING ACTIVITIES:
    Purchases of property and equipment, including internal-use software and website development (1,195 ) (1,378 ) (3,280 ) (3,748 ) (4,424 ) (4,628 )
    Acquisitions, net of cash acquired, and other (105 ) (860 ) (478 ) (926 ) (531 ) (986 )
    Sales and maturities of marketable securities 1,045 1,439 1,890 2,994 2,244 3,509
    Purchases of marketable securities (1,122 ) (147 ) (2,732 ) (920 ) (4,354 ) (1,339 )
    Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities (1,377 ) (946 ) (4,600 ) (2,600 ) (7,065 ) (3,444 )
    FINANCING ACTIVITIES:
    Excess tax benefits from stock-based compensation 95 212 121 96 199
    Proceeds from long-term debt and other 33 28 260 379 6,241 628
    Repayments of long-term debt and other (181 ) (84 ) (712 ) (331 ) (894 ) (371 )
    Principal repayments of capital lease obligations (656 ) (343 ) (1,738 ) (878 ) (2,144 ) (1,103 )
    Principal repayments of finance lease obligations (21 ) (13 ) (95 ) (68 ) (163 ) (73 )
    Net cash provided by (used in) financing activities (730 ) (412 ) (2,073 ) (777 ) 3,136 (720 )
    Foreign-currency effect on cash and cash equivalents (63 ) (207 ) (283 ) (150 ) (443 ) (155 )
    Net increase (decrease) in cash and cash equivalents 440 201 (3,848 ) (3,400 ) 5,451 1,386
    CASH AND CASH EQUIVALENTS, END OF PERIOD $ 10,709 $ 5,258 $ 10,709 $ 5,258 $ 10,709 $ 5,258
    SUPPLEMENTAL CASH FLOW INFORMATION:
    Cash paid for interest on long-term debt $ 7 $ 7 $ 177 $ 56 $ 212 $ 93
    Cash paid for income taxes (net of refunds) 80 38 200 148 230 173
    Property and equipment acquired under capital leases 1,047 1,158 3,385 2,794 4,599 3,347
    Property and equipment acquired under build-to-suit leases 125 343 381 707 595 920
    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Consolidated Statements of Operations
    (in millions, except per share data)
    (unaudited)
    Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended
    September 30, September 30,
    2015 2014 2015 2014
    Net product sales $ 18,463 $ 16,022 $ 52,650 $ 46,978
    Net service sales 6,895 4,557 18,609 12,681
    Total net sales 25,358 20,579 71,259 59,659
    Operating expenses (1):
    Cost of sales 16,755 14,627 47,310 42,080
    Fulfillment 3,230 2,643 8,865 7,342
    Marketing 1,264 993 3,496 2,806
    Technology and content 3,197 2,423 8,971 6,639
    General and administrative 463 406 1,357 1,110
    Other operating expense (income), net 43 31 136 94
    Total operating expenses 24,952 21,123 70,135 60,071
    Income (loss) from operations 406 (544 ) 1,124 (412 )
    Interest income 13 9 37 31
    Interest expense (116 ) (49 ) (344 ) (136 )
    Other income (expense), net (56 ) (50 ) (187 ) (23 )
    Total non-operating income (expense) (159 ) (90 ) (494 ) (128 )
    Income (loss) before income taxes 247 (634 ) 630 (540 )
    Benefit (provision) for income taxes (161 ) 205 (498 ) 38
    Equity-method investment activity, net of tax (7 ) (8 ) (18 ) 47
    Net income (loss) $ 79 $ (437 ) $ 114 $ (455 )
    Basic earnings per share $ 0.17 $ (0.95 ) $ 0.24 $ (0.99 )
    Diluted earnings per share $ 0.17 $ (0.95 ) $ 0.24 $ (0.99 )
    Weighted average shares used in computation of earnings per share:
    Basic 468 463 467 461
    Diluted 478 463 476 461
    _____________
    (1) Includes stock-based compensation as follows:
    Fulfillment $ 122 $ 93 $ 344 $ 278
    Marketing 48 32 133 91
    Technology and content 309 204 861 579
    General and administrative 65 48 175 141
    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income (Loss)
    (in millions)
    (unaudited)
    Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended
    September 30, September 30,
    2015 2014 2015 2014
    Net income (loss) $ 79 $ (437 ) $ 114 $ (455 )
    Other comprehensive income (loss):
    Foreign currency translation adjustments, net of tax of $4, $(1), $3, and $0 (56 ) (248 ) (170 ) (209 )
    Net change in unrealized gains (losses) on available-for-sale securities:
    Unrealized gains (losses), net of tax of $3, $2, $(5), and $1 (3 ) (1 ) 3 2
    Reclassification adjustment for losses (gains) included in “Other income (expense), net,” net of tax of $(1), $(1), $(1), and $(1) 1 (2 ) 3 (2 )
    Net unrealized gains (losses) on available-for-sale securities (2 ) (3 ) 6
    Total other comprehensive income (loss) (58 ) (251 ) (164 ) (209 )
    Comprehensive income (loss) $ 21 $ (688 ) $ (50 ) $ (664 )
    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Segment Information
    (in millions)
    (unaudited)
    Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended
    September 30, September 30,
    2015 2014 2015 2014
    North America
    Net sales $ 15,006 $ 11,699 $ 42,208 $ 33,499
    Segment operating expenses (1) 14,478 11,759 40,461 32,940
    Segment operating income (loss) $ 528 $ (60 ) $ 1,747 $ 559
    International
    Net sales $ 8,267 $ 7,711 $ 23,577 $ 22,936
    Segment operating expenses (1) 8,323 7,885 23,728 23,144
    Segment operating income (loss) $ (56 ) $ (174 ) $ (151 ) $ (208 )
    AWS
    Net sales $ 2,085 $ 1,169 $ 5,474 $ 3,224
    Segment operating expenses (1) 1,564 1,071 4,297 2,804

    Segment operating income (loss)

    $ 521 $ 98 $ 1,177 $ 420
    Consolidated
    Net sales $ 25,358 $ 20,579 $ 71,259 $ 59,659
    Segment operating expenses (1) 24,365 20,715 68,486 58,888
    Segment operating income (loss) 993 (136 ) 2,773 771
    Stock-based compensation (544 ) (377 ) (1,513 ) (1,089 )
    Other operating income (expense), net (43 ) (31 ) (136 ) (94 )
    Income (loss) from operations 406 (544 ) 1,124 (412 )
    Total non-operating income (expense) (159 ) (90 ) (494 ) (128 )
    Benefit (provision) for income taxes (161 ) 205 (498 ) 38
    Equity-method investment activity, net of tax (7 ) (8 ) (18 ) 47
    Net income (loss) $ 79 $ (437 ) $ 114 $ (455 )
    Segment Highlights:
    Y/Y net sales growth:
    North America 28 % 23 % 26 % 24 %
    International 7 14 3 17
    AWS 78 43 70 50
    Consolidated 23 20 19 22
    Net sales mix:
    North America 59 % 57 % 59 % 56 %
    International 33 37 33 39
    AWS 8 6 8 5
    Consolidated 100 % 100 % 100 % 100 %

    ______________________________

    (1) Excludes stock-based compensation and “Other operating expense (income), net,” which are not allocated to segments.

    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Supplemental Net Sales Information
    (in millions)
    (unaudited)
    Three Months Ended Nine Months Ended
    September 30, September 30,
    2015 2014 2015 2014
    Net Sales:
    North America
    Media $ 2,963 $ 2,734 $ 8,552 $ 8,022
    Electronics and other general merchandise 11,840 8,793 33,077 24,988
    Other (1) 203 172 579 489
    Total North America $ 15,006 $ 11,699 $ 42,208 $ 33,499
    International
    Media $ 2,320 $ 2,510 $ 6,734 $ 7,532
    Electronics and other general merchandise 5,901 5,160 16,705 15,260
    Other (1) 46 41 138 144
    Total International $ 8,267 $ 7,711 $ 23,577 $ 22,936
    Year-over-year Percentage Growth:
    North America
    Media 8 % 5 % 7 % 10 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise 35 31 32 29
    Other 18 20 19 19
    Total North America 28 23 26 24
    International
    Media (8 )% 4 % (11 )% 5 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise 14 20 9 24
    Other 10 (18 ) (4 ) (1 )
    Total International 7 14 3 17
    Year-over-year Percentage Growth, excluding the effect of foreign exchange rates:
    North America
    Media 9 % 5 % 7 % 10 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise 35 31 33 29
    Other 18 20 18 19
    Total North America 29 23 26 24
    International
    Media 6 % 3 % 4 % 4 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise 32 19 28 22
    Other 26 (19 ) 11 (3 )
    Total International 24 13 20 15

    ______________________________

    (1) Includes sales from non-retail activities, such as certain advertising services and our co-branded credit card agreements.

    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Consolidated Balance Sheets
    (in millions, except per share data)
    September 30, 2015 December 31, 2014
    (unaudited)

    ASSETS

    Current assets:
    Cash and cash equivalents $ 10,709 $ 14,557
    Marketable securities 3,719 2,859
    Inventories 8,981 8,299
    Accounts receivable, net and other 5,440 5,612
    Total current assets 28,849 31,327
    Property and equipment, net 20,636 16,967
    Goodwill 3,529 3,319
    Other assets 3,216 2,892
    Total assets $ 56,230 $ 54,505

    LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY

    Current liabilities:
    Accounts payable $ 14,437 $ 16,459
    Accrued expenses and other 9,157 9,807
    Unearned revenue 3,063 1,823
    Total current liabilities 26,657 28,089
    Long-term debt 8,243 8,265
    Other long-term liabilities 8,900 7,410
    Commitments and contingencies
    Stockholders’ equity:
    Preferred stock, $0.01 par value:
    Authorized shares — 500
    Issued and outstanding shares — none
    Common stock, $0.01 par value:
    Authorized shares — 5,000
    Issued shares — 492 and 488
    Outstanding shares — 469 and 465 5 5
    Treasury stock, at cost (1,837 ) (1,837 )
    Additional paid-in capital 12,874 11,135
    Accumulated other comprehensive loss (675 ) (511 )
    Retained earnings 2,063 1,949
    Total stockholders’ equity 12,430 10,741
    Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity $ 56,230 $ 54,505
    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Supplemental Financial Information and Business Metrics
    (in millions, except per share data)
    (unaudited)
    Y/Y %
    Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015 Change
    Cash Flows and Shares
    Operating cash flow — trailing twelve months (TTM) $ 5,705 $ 6,842 $ 7,845 $ 8,980 $ 9,823 72 %
    Purchases of property and equipment (incl. internal-use software & website development) — TTM $ 4,628 $ 4,893 $ 4,684 $ 4,607 $ 4,424 (4 )%
    Principal repayments of capital lease obligations — TTM $ 1,103 $ 1,285 $ 1,537 $ 1,832 $ 2,144 94 %
    Principal repayments of finance lease obligations — TTM $ 73 $ 135 $ 132 $ 155 $ 163 125 %
    Property and equipment acquired under capital leases — TTM $ 3,347 $ 4,008 $ 4,246 $ 4,710 $ 4,599 37 %
    Free cash flow — TTM (1) $ 1,077 $ 1,949 $ 3,161 $ 4,373 $ 5,399 401 %
    Free cash flow — TTM Y/Y growth (decline) 178 % (4 )% 112 % 321 % 401 % N/A
    Invested capital (2) $ 18,715 $ 21,021 $ 23,090 $ 25,289 $ 27,425 47 %
    Free cash flow less lease principal repayments — TTM (3) $ (99 ) $ 529 $ 1,492 $ 2,386 $ 3,092 N/A
    Free cash flow less finance lease principal repayments and capital acquired under capital leases — TTM (4) $ (2,343 ) $ (2,194 ) $ (1,217 ) $ (492 ) $ 637 N/A
    Common shares and stock-based awards outstanding 481 483 483 488 489 2 %
    Common shares outstanding 463 465 466 468 469 1 %
    Stock awards outstanding 18 18 17 20 20 13 %
    Stock awards outstanding — % of common shares outstanding 3.9 % 3.8 % 3.8 % 4.4 % 4.3 % N/A
    Results of Operations
    Worldwide (WW) net sales $ 20,579 $ 29,328 $ 22,717 $ 23,185 $ 25,358 23 %
    WW net sales — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 20 % 18 % 22 % 27 % 30 % N/A
    WW net sales — TTM $ 85,246 $ 88,988 $ 91,963 $ 95,808 $ 100,588 18 %
    WW net sales — TTM Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 22 % 20 % 20 % 22 % 24 % N/A
    Operating income (loss) $ (544 ) $ 591 $ 255 $ 464 $ 406 N/A
    Operating income/loss — Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X N/A 22 % 90 % N/A N/A N/A
    Operating margin — % of WW net sales (2.6 )% 2.0 % 1.1 % 2.0 % 1.6 % N/A
    Operating income — TTM $ 97 $ 178 $ 287 $ 765 $ 1,715 N/A
    Operating income — TTM Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X (94 )% (79 )% (56 )% 35 % N/A N/A
    Operating margin — TTM % of WW net sales 0.1 % 0.2 % 0.3 % 0.8 % 1.7 % N/A
    Net income (loss) $ (437 ) $ 214 $ (57 ) $ 92 $ 79 N/A
    Net income (loss) per diluted share $ (0.95 ) $ 0.45 $ (0.12 ) $ 0.19 $ 0.17 N/A
    Net income (loss) — TTM $ (216 ) $ (241 ) $ (405 ) $ (188 ) $ 328 N/A
    Net income (loss) per diluted share — TTM $ (0.47 ) $ (0.52 ) $ (0.88 ) $ (0.41 ) $ 0.69 N/A

    ______________________________

    (1)

    “Free cash flow” is defined as net cash provided by operating activities less cash expenditures for purchases of property and equipment, including internal-use software and website development.

    (2) Average Total Assets minus Current Liabilities (excluding current portion of Long-Term Debt) over five quarter ends.
    (3) “Free cash flow less lease principal repayments” is defined as net cash provided by operating activities, less (i) purchases of property and equipment, including internal-use software and website development, (ii) principal repayments of capital lease obligations, and (iii) principal repayments of finance lease obligations. Free cash flow less lease principal repayments approximates the actual payments of cash for our capital and finance leases.
    (4) “Free cash flow less finance lease principal repayments and capital acquired under capital leases” is defined as net cash provided by operating activities, less (i) purchases of property and equipment, including internal-use software and website development, (ii) principal repayments of finance lease obligations, and (iii) property and equipment acquired under capital leases. In this measure, property and equipment acquired under capital leases is reflected as if these assets had been purchased for cash, which is not the case as these assets have been leased.
    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Supplemental Financial Information and Business Metrics
    (in millions)
    (unaudited)
    Y/Y %
    Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015 Change
    Segments
    North America Segment:
    Net sales $ 11,699 $ 17,333 $ 13,406 $ 13,796 $ 15,006 28 %
    Net sales — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 23 % 21 % 24 % 26 % 29 % N/A
    Net sales — TTM $ 50,834 $ 53,432 $ 56,233 $ 59,540 24 %
    Operating income (loss) $ (60 ) $ 733 $ 517 $ 703 $ 528 N/A
    Operating income/loss — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 77 % 111 % N/A N/A
    Operating margin — % of North America net sales (0.5 )% 4.2 % 3.9 % 5.1 % 3.5 % N/A
    Operating income — TTM $ 1,292 $ 1,520 $ 1,893 $ 2,480 N/A
    Operating margin — TTM % of North America net sales 2.5 % 2.8 % 3.4 % 4.2 % N/A
    International Segment:
    Net sales $ 7,711 $ 10,575 $ 7,745 $ 7,565 $ 8,267 7 %
    Net sales — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 13 % 12 % 14 % 22 % 24 % N/A
    Net sales — TTM $ 33,510 $ 33,371 $ 33,598 $ 34,154 3 %
    Net sales — TTM % of WW net sales 38 % 36 % 35 % 34 % N/A
    Operating income (loss) $ (174 ) $ 65 $ (76 ) $ (19 ) $ (56 ) (68 )%
    Operating income/loss — Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X N/A N/A N/A N/A
    Operating margin — % of International net sales (2.3 )% 0.6 % (1.0 )% (0.2 )% (0.7 )% N/A
    Operating income (loss) — TTM $ (144 ) $ (188 ) $ (205 ) $ (86 ) N/A
    Operating margin — TTM % of International net sales (0.4 )% (0.6 )% (0.6 )% (0.3 )% N/A
    AWS Segment:
    Net sales $ 1,169 $ 1,420 $ 1,566 $ 1,824 $ 2,085 78 %
    Net sales — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 43 % 47 % 49 % 81 % 78 % N/A
    Net sales — TTM 4,644 5,160 $ 5,977 $ 6,894 65 %
    Net sales — TTM % of WW net sales 5 % 6 % 6 % 7 % N/A
    Operating income $ 98 $ 240 $ 265 $ 391 $ 521 432 %
    Operating income — Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X (13 )% 314 % 353 % N/A
    Operating margin — % of AWS net sales 8.4 % 16.9 % 16.9 % 21.4 % 25.0 % N/A
    Operating income — TTM 660 680 $ 993 $ 1,417 N/A
    Operating margin — TTM % of AWS net sales 14.2 % 13.2 % 16.6 % 20.6 % N/A
    Consolidated Segments:
    Operating expenses (5) $ 20,715 $ 28,290 $ 22,011 $ 22,110 $ 24,365 18 %
    Operating expenses — TTM (5) $ 83,599 $ 87,180 $ 89,951 $ 93,126 $ 96,777 16 %
    Operating income (loss) $ (136 ) $ 1,038 $ 706 $ 1,075 $ 993 N/A
    Operating income/loss — Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X (151 )% 22 % 45 % 168 % N/A N/A
    Operating margin — % of Consolidated net sales (0.7 )% 3.5 % 3.1 % 4.6 % 3.9 % N/A
    Operating income — TTM $ 1,647 $ 1,808 $ 2,012 $ 2,682 $ 3,811 131 %
    Operating income — TTM Y/Y growth (decline), excluding F/X (12 )% (10 )% (1 )% 34 % 134 % N/A
    Operating margin — TTM % of Consolidated net sales 1.9 % 2.0 % 2.2 % 2.8 % 3.8 % N/A

    ______________________________

    (5) Represents cost of sales, fulfillment, marketing, technology and content, and general and administrative operating expenses, excluding stock-based compensation.

    AMAZON.COM, INC.
    Supplemental Financial Information and Business Metrics
    (in millions, except inventory turnover, accounts payable days and employee data)
    (unaudited)
    Y/Y %
    Q3 2014 Q4 2014 Q1 2015 Q2 2015 Q3 2015 Change
    Supplemental
    Supplemental North America Segment Net Sales:
    Media $ 2,734 $ 3,544 $ 2,969 $ 2,620 $ 2,963 8 %
    Media — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 5 % 1 % 5 % 7 % 9 % N/A
    Media — TTM $ 11,536 $ 11,567 $ 11,711 $ 11,867 $ 12,096 5 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise $ 8,793 $ 13,529 $ 10,250 $ 10,987 $ 11,840 35 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 31 % 27 % 31 % 32 % 35 % N/A
    Electronics and other general merchandise — TTM $ 35,636 $ 38,517 $ 40,938 $ 43,559 $ 46,606 31 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise — TTM % of North America net sales 74 % 76 % 77 % 77 % 78 % N/A
    Other $ 172 $ 260 $ 187 $ 189 $ 203 18 %
    Supplemental International Segment Net Sales:
    Media $ 2,510 $ 3,406 $ 2,320 $ 2,094 $ 2,320 (8 )%
    Media — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 3 % (1 )% 2 % 3 % 6 % N/A
    Media — TTM $ 11,246 $ 10,938 $ 10,615 $ 10,329 $ 10,140 (10 )%
    Electronics and other general merchandise $ 5,160 $ 7,109 $ 5,378 $ 5,425 $ 5,901 14 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise — Y/Y growth, excluding F/X 19 % 19 % 21 % 31 % 32 % N/A
    Electronics and other general merchandise — TTM $ 21,737 $ 22,369 $ 22,559 $ 23,072 $ 23,814 10 %
    Electronics and other general merchandise — TTM % of International net sales 65 % 67 % 68 % 69 % 70 % N/A
    Other $ 41 $ 60 $ 47 $ 46 $ 46 10 %
    Balance Sheet
    Cash and marketable securities — ending $ 6,883 $ 17,416 $ 13,781 $ 14,001 $ 14,428 110 %
    Inventory, net — ending $ 7,316 $ 8,299 $ 7,369 $ 7,470 $ 8,981 23 %
    Inventory turnover, average — TTM 8.9 8.6 8.8 8.9 8.6 (3 )%
    Property and equipment, net — ending $ 15,702 $ 16,967 $ 17,736 $ 19,479 $ 20,636 31 %
    Accounts payable — ending $ 11,811 $ 16,459 $ 11,917 $ 12,391 $ 14,437 22 %
    Accounts payable days — ending 74 73 70 74 79 7 %
    Other
    WW shipping revenue $ 1,048 $ 1,701 $ 1,299 $ 1,399 $ 1,494 43 %
    WW shipping revenue — % of net sales (6) 5.4 % 6.1 % 6.1 % 6.6 % 6.4 % N/A
    WW shipping costs $ 2,020 $ 3,049 $ 2,309 $ 2,340 $ 2,720 35 %
    WW shipping costs — % of net sales (6) 10.4 % 10.9 % 10.9 % 11.0 % 11.7 % N/A
    WW net shipping costs $ 972 $ 1,348 $ 1,010 $ 941 $ 1,226 26 %
    WW net shipping costs — % of net sales (6) 5.0 % 4.8 % 4.8 % 4.4 % 5.3 % N/A
    WW paid units — Y/Y growth 21 % 20 % 20 % 22 % 26 % N/A
    WW seller unit mix — % of WW paid units 42 % 43 % 44 % 45 % 46 % N/A
    Employees (full-time and part-time; excludes contractors & temporary personnel) 149,500 154,100 165,000 183,100 222,400 49 %

    ______________________________

    (6) Includes North America and International segment net sales.

    Amazon.com, Inc.
    Certain Definitions

    Customer Accounts

    • References to customers mean customer accounts, which are unique e-mail addresses, established either when a customer places an order or when a customer orders from other sellers on our websites. Customer accounts exclude certain customers, including customers associated with certain of our acquisitions, Amazon Payments customers, AWS customers, and the customers of select companies with whom we have a technology alliance or marketing and promotional relationship. Customers are considered active when they have placed an order during the preceding twelve-month period.

    Seller Accounts

    • References to sellers means seller accounts, which are established when a seller receives an order from a customer account. Sellers are considered active when they have received an order from a customer during the preceding twelve-month period.

    AWS Customers

    • References to AWS customers mean unique AWS customer accounts, which are unique e-mail addresses that are eligible to use AWS services. This includes AWS accounts in the AWS free tier. Multiple users accessing AWS services via one account are counted as a single account. Customers are considered active when they have had AWS usage activity during the preceding one-month period.

    Units

    Source: Amazon.com, Inc

    Image via Amazon

  • New Facebook Feature To Help You Get Products In Front Of People

    New Facebook Feature To Help You Get Products In Front Of People

    Facebook is serious about becoming a major destination for people who want to purchase things. If this hasn’t already been abundantly clear from the various ad and Page features it has introduced over the past year, it certainly is now.

    On Monday, Facebook announced a new shopping feature where users will be able to see things to buy from both business Pages and Groups. Businesses listing products on their Pages will be able to appear in this section, greatly expanding their ability to be seen by potential customers.

    Do you think people will regularly utilize such a feature to purchase items? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Here’s what Facebook had to say about the feature. It’s not much, but it’s something that will clearly be growing in time:

    We’ve also seen that people discover new products across multiple areas on Facebook—News Feed, Pages, and Groups. In the coming weeks we’ll begin testing a single place for people to more easily discover, share and purchase products. We’re testing with a limited set of small businesses in the US who are also testing the Shop section on Pages. Their products will be eligible to appear there. Over time we’ll explore incorporating additional content into this experience, such as items listed for sale in Facebook Groups.

    Here’s what the feature looks like:

    This was the big reveal in a post on the Facebook for Business blog, which highlights a number of product-selling features Facebook has introduced in recent months.

    “On Facebook we’ve seen that people are coming to our platform not only to connect with friends and family but also with products and brands,” the company says. “In fact, a survey suggested that nearly half of people come to Facebook to actively look for products, with a majority of them discovering new products in News Feed, Pages, and Groups.”

    “This behavior—that’s already happening on Facebook—gives us a chance to make people and marketers’ experiences better,” it adds. “We want to build native experiences that make it easier for both people to discover products on mobile and businesses to drive more sales. Some of our efforts are fully launched and are already creating value for people and businesses. Others are in early test phases. These tests will evolve as we get more feedback.”

    For one, Facebook launched the carousel format for ads last year, enabling businesses to display multiple products in a single ad (the format is also available for Instagram). According to the company, the format drives 30 – 50 percent lower cost-per-conversion than others.

    Facebook’s dynamic product ads enable businesses to upload their product catalog and let Facebook decide when to show the most relevant products to people. This functionality works with the carousel format.

    A few months ago, the company announced that it is testing Canvas, which it describes as a “new native way to browse from ads”. A new experience is coming to that, that will let people see a fast-loading, full-screen experience when they click on an ad. From there, they can browse through products before going to the advertiser’s website to make a purchase.

    Then there’s the “buy” button, which has been in testing for a while.

    Last month, Facebook announced changes to make Pages more business-friendly, and that includes the addition of the aforementioned “shop” section. This lets you showcase products, and apparently will integrate into the new shopping section Facebook just revealed.

    Earlier this year, we looked at a variety of ways Facebook is getting better for selling products. The things discussed here really only scratch the surface, and don’t even get into the things they’re doing with Messenger.

    As of July, Facebook users were spending an average of 20 minutes per day on Facebook, accounting for roughly 20% of all time online. In the U.S. the numbers are even greater.

    Do you expect Facebook’s increased attention to ecommerce features will lead to significantly more sales being made? Let us know what you think.

    Images via Facebook

  • ‘Handmade At Amazon’ Launched For Artisan Ecommerce

    ‘Handmade At Amazon’ Launched For Artisan Ecommerce

    Amazon announced the launch of Handmade at Amazon, a new store for handmade items crafted and sold directly from artisans. In other words, here’s Amazon’s direct competitor to Etsy at both the seller and consumer levels.

    The store includes product categories like Jewelry, Home Décor, Artwork, Stationery and Party Supplies, Kitchen and Dining, and Furniture.

    “With Handmade at Amazon, customers can discover artisans from around the world, and shop local from artisans based in their community with the familiar Amazon experience they know and trust,” Amazon says. “Handmade at Amazon was designed to provide customers and artisans a tailored store specifically for handcrafted items. All products available on Handmade at Amazon are factory-free and must be made by hand.”

    “We have designed a custom shopping experience for customers looking for handmade items by bringing together many of the best artisans in the world, and they’re adding thousands of items daily,” adds Peter Faricy, VP for Amazon Marketplace. “Knowing an item has a unique story behind it creates a personal experience that customers have told us makes owning handmade items special. Handmade at Amazon offers customers more than 80,000 quality handcrafted items from around the world, and over 30 percent can be personalized by artisans to delight customers.”

    Users can shop by country to find items from artisans in over 60 countries, or they can shop locally at the state level.

    At launch, over 600 items from Handmade at Amazon are Prime eligible, and more will continue to be added on a daily basis.

    Every product page in the store features a location icon showing where the artisan is based in addition to a link to the artisan’s profile.

    Image via Amazon

  • Facebook Messenger Pairs Users With Professionals With New Pro.com Integration

    Facebook Messenger Pairs Users With Professionals With New Pro.com Integration

    It’s been a big year for Facebook Messenger, which continues its transition from a simple instant messaging app to a platform for business and more. A new partnership with Pro.com will now even let users tap Messenger to get instant pricing and appointment scheduling with home professionals.

    Pro.com announced the launch of a new mobile messaging service called Tex-a-Pro, which lets home-owners schedule home projects at flat-rate prices via text message or Facebook Messenger. This is the first such service to hit Messenger.

    According to the announcement, Messenger users can send a message to Pro.com to be immediately connected to a personal Home Project Manager to provide support during “every step of the project through to its completion.” it says:

    “Our customers don’t want to pick up the phone to call a Pro. Instead they want a seamless mobile-first solution that fits into their active lifestyles,” said Matt Williams, CEO and founder of Pro.com. “Text-a-Pro takes the hassle out of home services by offering price transparency, instant scheduling and easy access to Certified Professionals all through mobile messaging. There is no easier way to schedule, coordinate and complete home projects.”

    Starting today, Text-a-Pro features will be available within Facebook’s Messenger app. By sending a message in Messenger, customers can experience the full Pro.com service conveniently on their mobile devices. Through Messenger, homeowners will have the additional benefit of read receipts, so they’ll know when their messages have been delivered and seen, improving the ability to communicate in real time. People will also be able to use features they know and love from Messenger, like stickers and GIFs, for more expressive conversations. Pro.com is the first partner to offer home services inside Messenger. Going forward, Pro.com will more deeply integrate with Messenger, adding even richer functionality.

    Earlier this year, Facebook Messenger began allowing users to send money to each other. Then, Facebook made major announcements about opening up Messenger to developers to build integrations, and giving businesses ways to engage with users through the app. Facebook also opened access to Messenger to anyone with a phone number (no Facebook account needed) and launched a standalone web version.

    In August, Facebook announced Pages Messaging, giving customers more ways to send private messages to businesses and ways for Page admins to manage and respond to them. People can send messages to Pages from local awareness ads and initiate private conversations in a Messenger window.

    Facebook also unveiled M, a personal assistant within Messenger, which can help users purchase items.

    The Pro.com integration is likely only the latest in many to come from various business looking to better connect with consumers where they’re already spending a great deal of their time.

    At last count, Messenger had 700 million monthly users.

    Image via Pro.com

  • Buyable Pins On Pinterest Get Big Expansion

    Buyable Pins On Pinterest Get Big Expansion

    Earlier this year, Pinterest announced Buyable Pins as a “simple and secure” way for users to buy products right on Pinterest. This week at the Shop.org 2015 Digital Summit, the company announced the addition of new platform integrations and the availability of the feature to many more merchants.

    Do you plan on taking advantage of Buyable Pins on Pinterest? Do you expect Pinterest to be a major help in driving sales? Are you already seeing success with it? Discuss in the comments.

    “Pinterest is a catalog of ideas,” a spokesperson for Pinterest told WebProNews when the feature was first unveiled. “Our mission is not just to show you ideas, but to help you bring them to life. Buyable Pins is the next step in this journey, as we bring the joy of discovering products in your favorite stores offline, online.”

    With Buyable Pins, users can buy things on Pinterest when they see a blue price and “Buy it” button. There’s also a price filter in the search filters for those looking for something specific, which automatically makes the functionality more useful and turns Pinterest into much more of a shopping service in general, even if there remains plenty to do beyond shopping.

    The user can tap “Buy it” when they’re ready to check out, and pay with Apple Pay or credit card. Once Pinterst has the personal info, it is stored so the user doesn’t have to keep entering it every time. Pinterest has partnered with payment processors like Stripe to handle this so it doesn’t store the info itself.

    Right at launch, Pinterest had millions of Buyable Pins. This week, Pinterest said it doubled the number in the three months since, with over 60 million of them now out there.

    Also this week, the company announced the addition of three new ecommerce platform integrations: IBM Commerce, Magento, and Bigcommerce (which was also part of the Twitter buy button announcement last week). That brings the total to five platform partners as Buyable Pins launched with support from Shopify and Demandware.

    Magento’s marketing team said in a blog post:

    Magento merchants can now sell their products directly on Pinterest through Buyable Pins. Together with our partner Creatuity, Magento has launched the new Pinterest Buyable Pins extension, designed to work seamlessly with your Magento online store.

    Merchants can now reach millions of Pinterest mobile app users to drive incremental sales, new customer acquisition and improve mobile conversions. Buyable Pins make it easier than ever for shoppers to buy their favorite finds and Pins right from their Pinterest iPhone or iPad app. And, the best part is that Pinterest won’t take any cut from your sales as Buyable Pins is currently free of charge to merchants.

    Tracey Wallace at BigCommerce wrote:

    For retailers, the introduction of Buyable Pins means Pinterest is now an opportunity for merchants to grow revenue by expanding into new and innovates sales channels, reaching consumers wherever they naturally discover products. Pins will be a crucial part of a multi-channel marketing strategy.

    Overall, the key benefit of Buyable Pins is the ability to drive customer acquisition at no additional cost to the merchant.

    Pinterest also announced the roll-out of new Buyable Pins from Bloomingdale’s, Wayfair, DVF, Steven Alan and thousands of new merchants from Demandware and Shopify.

    “In the first few months of the program, merchants are seeing that Buyable Pins are driving new customers, adding incremental sales at no cost and delivering higher mobile conversions,” a spokesperson for Pinterest told us in an email.

    A study from Shopify found that Buyable Pins from its merchants showed a 2x higher conversion rate than other pins on mobile.

    If the ecommerce platform you use doesn’t currently support Buyable Pins, you can sign up for the waitlist here, and they’ll let you know about new integration opportunities.

    It’s worth noting that the presence of Buyable Pins are likely to make users think about Pinterest as more a shopping destination in general, which should in turn help drive growth for Pinterest as an advertising platform with Promoted Pins. This supports Pinterest’s pitch to advertisers to save some room in their search budgets.

    Are you interested in using Buyable PIns? Do you expect them to be as effective or more effective than similar offerings from Facebook and Twitter? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Image via Pinterest

  • Google Merchant Center Adds Shopping Assortment Report

    Google Merchant Center Adds Shopping Assortment Report

    Google announced the addition of a new Shopping Assortment Report in Google Merchant Center aimed at helping merchants plan their product assortments so they can reach more shoppers online.

    The report shows you the top 100 products that you don’t already offer in your product feed for each Google Product Category. It also displays benchmark selling prices for said products.

    “This information can be helpful in identifying new brands and products to add to your assortment, and reach even more customers with in-demand products,” said Matt Henderson, Product Manager for Google Shopping. “The data is based on the popularity of these products on Google Shopping, offering a near real-time view into online consumer demand for shoppable products.”

    “Google’s new Assortment Report has already become a useful tool for us to identify white space opportunities, from newly emerging products we didn’t already carry, to out-of-stock products to prioritize for restocking,” said Daniel Dutton, Strategy leader at Target.

    According to Google, the new report helps you identify key products missing from your feed and expand your offerings accordingly so you can reach more shoppers for the holidays.

    Image via Google

  • eBay Gives Sellers More Free Listings

    eBay Gives Sellers More Free Listings

    Beginning on October 15, eBay sellers will get more zero insertion fee listings. The monthly allotment is going from 20 to 50 for auction-style and fixed price listings in most categories (Motors Vehicles, Real Estate, Classified Ads, Heavy Equipment, Concession Trailers & Carts, Imaging & Aesthetics Equipment, and Commercial Printing Presses are excluded).

    “This increased allotment also replaces the 20 zero insertion fee listings dedicated to auction-style listings in Collectibles categories,” says eBay’s Jordan Sweetnam in an announcement. “And, for those of you ready for the next level, you can try a Basic eBay Stores subscription for one month—FREE. But, space is limited, so you’ll have to activate it by October 31.”

    More on that here.

    eBay is giving basic-level eBay Stores subscribers an increased allotment from 150 to 200 zero insertion fee fixed price listings per month. For all eBay Stores subscribers, the monthly allotment of 100 additional zero insertion fee auction-style listings is being extended to apply to listings in the Collectibles and Fashion categories.

    “Once this goes into effect, I hope this encourages you to list more than ever,” says Sweetnam. “Because, in a few weeks, we’ll be launching our Holiday ‘Wish Bigger’ campaign (get a sneak peek here)—and then it’ll be on.”

    A couple weeks ago, eBay gave sellers new, more flexible return features.

    Image via eBay