Online shopping giant Amazon (AMZN) has likely seen the same writing on the wall that a lot of other retailers have seen these days: people are reining in their spending, especially when it comes to non-essentials. To that end, Amazon rolled out a new discount store operation. Amazon investors were all in favor, and put their money into Amazon itself, sending shares up over 2% in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
The discount side of Amazon is called “Amazon Haul,” and it was designed specifically to take on some of the biggest names in discounting like Temu and Shein. Featuring a wide range of goods—everything from housewares to electronics and more—all costing less than $20, Amazon promises “crazy low prices,” and even remarkably cheap shipping. Orders over $25 will be shipped free, while orders under that threshold will cost $3.99.
There is one downside, however: shipping times. While shipping costs will be modest if not negligible, it will take quite a while for the items to actually reach customers. Amazon notes that most purchases made through Amazon Haul will take “under two weeks,” according to a CNBC report. However, “…shipping times may vary and are dependent on a customer’s delivery location.” That is not exactly a confidence-builder.
Massive Hack
Meanwhile, in a move that will briefly terrify you, Amazon was hacked again. However, no customer records were compromised as a result, according to a Hackread report. The report noted that the data vigilante known as “Nam3l3ss” managed to compromise around eight million employee records. Not just from Amazon, either, but also from 3M (MMM) and Delta (DAL), among others.
The report noted that Nam3l3ss exploited a security flaw known as the MOVEit vulnerability, which is a flaw in a file transfer app of the same name. Many businesses use MOVEit to handle their more sensitive data, so any flaw therein becomes a key access point to a honeypot, just without the traps normally involved.
Is Amazon a Good Long-Term Investment?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on AMZN stock based on 44 Buys and one Hold assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 46.41% rally in its share price over the past year, the average AMZN price target of $238.35 per share implies 11.43% upside potential.
