The night that online jewelry retailer Blue Nile releases earnings, Amazon puts out a press release that says its Q4 jewelry sales were up 120% year over year, and it has great jewelry offerings for Valentines Day. Here's what's odd:
- The press release is late - Amazon already announced Q4 results, and didn't say much about jewelry on its conference call.
- No absolute numbers are given, so the 120% rise is meaningless. (It was probably off a small base, given Amazon's late entry to the jewelry category.)
- The press release is a perplexing amalgam of a financial press release and a marketing press release. If Amazon wanted to report numbers for one of its businesses, why throw in details about its Valentines' Day selection? And if it wanted to advertise its Valentines' Day selection, why throw in financial numbers?
Conclusion: Amazon was trying to detract or benefit from Blue Nile's earnings release and conference call.
Quick comment: How odd. Jeff Bezos is a better guy than that. And Amazon is a better - and larger - company than that.
