I disagree in 2 areas.
* Retail business.
Since Amazon is forced to collect sales tax, its price advantage is gone.
These days you notice a lot of ebay daily deals are partner with e-tailers
which don't collect sales tax. At the end the final price is lower than
Amazon. Consumers have no loyalty to any specific retails, only have loyalty
to the price as long as the reputation of the stores are OK. So, now many
smaller retailers have pricing advantage, people in CA these days buy
products from B&H, JR, Adorama and buydig. Consumers in the east buy from
newegg.com and buy.com because they don't collect sales tax.
Also don't count out the competition from local retails. They actually may
not have higher cost than Amazon after Amazon started collecting tax. They
can make money from service related business, such as Tire Center in Costco
and Walmart. They also can sell food products to make money. All online
retailers also are facing the shipping cost going up
problem because FedEx, and UPS keep raising price.
Just image if Amazon can get same margin as Costco, Walmart and Target
, how much retail business will be lost ?
* Kindle Devices. Amazon trying to use the devices to push its ad and keep
customers to buy products from its online stores. This looks a good idea,
but at the end the product price is still the key. If your price is higher,
consumers will shop somewhere else.
The only areas that Amazon is good is its cloud computing, but also the
competition is coming, and this business alone cannot justify its high stock
price.
Anyhow, the downside risk for Amazon is huge. Apple just did 38-39%
correction. Considering Amazon cannot make much money, far less than Apple.
Someone it will go down much more than just 38-39% once its growth story is
gone.
I actually think the 1st Q of 2013, its revenue growth will below 20%. Whole
2013 year probably only around 15%. If this is the case, many growth funds
will reduce their hold on AMZN because it's no longer considered as a growth
stock.