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Amazon to buy Diapers.com for $540 million

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Re: Amazon to buy Diapers.com for $540 million

#41
post #6

When we had our child and found diapers.com, I was convinced it was already an amazon company. diapers.com has great customer service and an unreal shipping policy. I guess it was a matter of time but it makes complete sense to me just like Zappos. Amazon buys company cultures, not businesses.

hmm, I always figured it was fulfilment companies that got picked up by Amazon. If you can move volume, and have loyalty, Amazon wants to know how.

Re: Amazon to buy Diapers.com for $540 million

#45

A question: Do they (diapers.com) make money? Free shipping, cheap diapers, expensive warehouse and logistics, etc. All this leaves very thin margins. I'm wondering how much money they have burned until today (the other articles implied it was a lot)

More on this: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/20/diapers-com-on-its-way-to-s... http://www.mentortechventures.com/MT-News.blog/2009/09/01/Di... So apparently, Quidsi (the real name) is at break even*, has raised 80 million in equity since 2006 (plus the founders own injections), and this year will sell 270m while spending 30m on advertising. At first I thought that they may not have been worth the 500m, but I'm rethink…

Note to self: Do NOT read Techcrunch comments. Ever.

Re: Amazon to buy Diapers.com for $540 million

#46
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that's their company name ( http://www.diapers.com/aboutus/aboutus.aspx ), that's their company name. Take it up with diapers.com (the company, not the domain name) if it's confusing. For the record, I agree with you, but a bunch of parenthesized "we mean the company, not just the domain name" seems superfluous given that the rest of the article is a click away.

And yet the headline didn't say "Amazon.com to buy Diapers.com"... ("Amazon.com, Inc." is the name of the company.)

"Amazon buys Diapers for $540 million" would also have been a set up for misunderstandings in it's own way.

Re: Amazon to buy Diapers.com for $540 million

#50
post #4

A bit of a background on diapers.com - referred to in the article - Recommended Read. http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/10_42/b41...

any HNers with experience w/Amazon "price bots"?

When Quidsi launched Soap.com in July, adding an additional 25,000 products to their lineup, the site was strafed almost from the minute it went live by price bots dispatched by Amazon. Quidsi network operators watched in amazement as Amazon pinged their site to find out what they were charging for each of the 25,000 new items they initially offered, and then adjusted its prices accordingly. Bharara and Lore knew that would happen. "If we put something on sale, we usually see Amazon respond in a couple of hours," says Bharara.

Or as Rohan puts it: "A price bot attack truly is the sincerest form of flattery."

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