Hacker News Reader

"Retailers went from 'Ho-ho' to 'Uh-oh' to 'Oh-no.'"

I feel like he's been saving this one.

Yeah, but it's a great line. (Also, Mary Delk is most likely a "she".)

Kind of nuts seeing that graph after just reading "Dear Hacker News, which 50k car should I buy" =P

what a paradox, compared with the 'amazon - best season ever' article...

Nicely framed by the Fred Wilson post that's also on the front page right now:

This downturn will be marked in history as the time where many of the business models built in the industrial era finally collapsed as a result of being undermined by the information age. Its [sic] creative destruction at work.

Looks like everyone spins it as they like it! I'd like to see someone release some hard numbers and apples-to-apples comparisons

Amazon said that they had more orders; they didn't say what those orders were, and more notably, they didn't give estimates on revenue for the holiday season.

Amazon may end up doing well this holiday, but I wouldn't ring the death knell for traditional retailing based on a press release.

Or profits. They might have had to discount heavily to attract sales at the expense of beloved profit margins.

Retail Sales Plummet