Amazon Led LivingSocial’s Last Round With A $56M Investment; Daily Deals Site Had A Net Loss Of $50M This Past Quarter

Daily deals company LivingSocial continues to face challenges in the market. In the last quarter it posted sales of $135 million, up 23% on a year ago, but it also swung to a net loss of $50 million, from net income of $156 million in Q1 2012. The numbers were revealed in a 10-Q filing from one of its key investors, Amazon, in line with its Q1 earnings reported on Thursday.

The filing also shows that Amazon was the majority investor in the $110 million round earlier this year. Amazon put in $56 million of that sum.

“Additionally, in Q1 2013 we made a $56 million investment in LivingSocial that we have recorded as a cost method investment,” it notes.

LivingSocial’s operating loss, meanwhile, was down to about half the size of last year, at $44 million. The Washington Business Journal cites a source that notes that LivingSocial has reduced its operating cash burn to single-digit millions to continue that trend. The company has been making an effort to cut expenses; in November it laid of 10% of its staff, equivalent to about 400 people.

E-commerce giant Amazon has a 29% equity stake in the company, it noted in the SEC filing. It also writes in the 10-Q that the book value of its equity-method investment was $36 million at the end of March. The losses at LivingSocial had a $17 million negative impact on Amazon.

Overall, Amazon saw revenues of $16 billion, falling just short of analyst expectations of $16.2 billion, with a bleak outlook for the quarter ahead, with its aggressive, thin-margin strategy leading it to an operating loss of up to $340 million. Right now, its stock is trading nearly 7% down.

The market for daily deals sites is less than healthy right now. Rival Groupon in February also reported a worse-than-expected loss and then lost its founder and CEO Andrew Mason in the wake of the news, and now it’s working on a pivot to become more of a multi-purpose local commerce player.

LivingSocial, which has been around since 2007, has raised an eye-watering $918 million in the last six years — and what that much sunk into the company, you can see why existing investors are key to keep it from falling over. CEO Tim O’Shaughnessy noted in February that its most recent $110 million round of fundraising was indeed a “down round”, valuing the company at around $1.5 billion, lower than in its last fundraise. But it was not an emergency debt infusion, he maintained: at least some of the investors took equity in the company as part of the deal.

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/26/amazon-led-livingsocials-last-round-with-a-56m-investment-daily-deals-site-had-a-net-loss-of-50m-this-past-quarter/

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Delta Ray is experienced web scraping consultant and writes articles on Extract Amazon Website, Product Details Scraping, Amazon Product Scraping, Linkedin Email Scraping, Screen Scraping Services, Yelp Review Scraping and yellowpages data scraping etc.

Amazon in $250M probe by French tax authority

Amazon is facing a $250 million tax investigation by French authorities, the company disclosed on Friday in a filing with the U.S. government.

In a 10-Q filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Amazon warned that one or more of its subsidiaries in the European Union between 2006 and 2010 owes tax to the French government. The retail giant said that as a result it led to "ordinary course adjustments or proposed adjustments to our taxes," but also noted that it had not yet received a final assessment from the French Tax Administration (FTA).

"We received proposed tax assessment notices for calendar years 2006 through 2010 relating to the allocation of income between foreign jurisdictions." Amazon said the notices propose additional French tax of "approximately $250 million," including interest and penalties during this period.

"We disagree with the proposed assessment and intend to vigorously contest it," Amazon said in the filing. "We plan to pursue all available administrative remedies at the FTA, and if we are not able to resolve this matter with the FTA, we plan to pursue judicial remedies."
Under pressure

Amazon has an extremely complicated structure in Europe, not least so it can cut down its tax bills across the region — notably in the U.K. where the company faces increased pressure by lawmakers to pay the expected amount of corporation tax.

The company first said it was under investigation by the U.K. authorities in April 2012. Despite making around $12 billion in sales during the three years prior, it was believed to have avoided paying tax on its profits after its U.K. sales business was transferred to a Luxembourg-based entity back in 2006.

Amazon operates in the U.K. as an "order fulfilment" and delivery service, while sales are conducted between U.K. consumers and sales teams at Luxembourg-based Amazon EU Sàrl.

Luxembourg has a far lower tax rate than the U.K., which over the last five years has seen an average corporation tax rate of around 25 percent.

When Amazon's director of public policy Andrew Cecil was hauled up in front of a U.K. parliamentary committee in November, he failed disclose sales figures that would determine how much tax Amazon should have been paying in the country, citing reasons of confidentiality. He was criticized as being "not a serious representative" for Amazon, and was lambasted by the committee's chair, Margaret Hodge MP, for offering "absolutely no information."

Weeks later, Amazon submitted sales figures to the committee under the condition of confidentiality. But this was ignored and the sales figures were publicly released by the committee.

Amazon's European structure was also disclosed in the intended leak, with much of the site's sales-generating operations based in Luxembourg, including figures relating to Amazon's media and application store operations.

Once U.K. lawmakers sunk its political teeth into the retail and sales giant, other European countries followed suit.

Amazon is also fighting the U.S. Internal Revenue Service for a $234 million unpaid tax bill. The knock-on effect to other technology firms could be significant if the U.S. federal tax agency wins the case because software assets, which are difficult to value, would then affect how much that firm would pay in tax.

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/amazon-in-250m-probe-by-french-tax-authority-7000014610/

Note:

Delta Ray is experienced web scraping consultant and writes articles on Extract Amazon Website, Product Details Scraping, Amazon Product Scraping, Linkedin Email Scraping, Screen Scraping Services, Yelp Review Scraping and yellowpages data scraping etc.

Understanding Data Mining

Well begun is half done. We can say that the invention of Internet is the greatest invention of the century which allows for quick information retrieval. It also has negative aspects, as it is an open forum therefore differentiating facts from fiction seems tough. It is the objective of every researcher to know how to perform mining of data on the Internet for accuracy of data. There are a number of search engines that provide powerful search results.

Knowing File Extensions in Data Mining

For mining data the first thing is important to know file extensions. Sites ending with dot-com are either commercial or sales sites. Since sales is involved there is a possibility that the collected information is inaccurate. Sites ending with dot-gov are of government departments, and these sites are reviewed by professionals. Sites ending with dot-org are generally for non-profit organizations. There is a possibility that the information is not accurate. Sites ending with dot-edu are of educational institutions, where the information is sourced by professionals. If you do not have an understanding you may take help of professional data mining services.

Knowing Search Engine Limitations for Data Mining

Second step is to understand when performing data mining is that majority search engines have filtering, file extension, or parameter. These are restrictions to be typed after your search term, for example: if you key in "marketing" and click "search," every site will be listed from dot-com sites having the term "marketing" on its website. If you key in "marketing site.gov," (without the quotation marks) only government department sites will be listed. If you key in "marketing site:.org" only non-profit organizations in marketing will be listed. However, if you key in "marketing site:.edu" only educational sites in marketing will be displayed. Depending on the kind of data that you want to mine after your search term you will have to enter "site.xxx", where xxx will being replaced by.com,.gov,.org or.edu.

Advanced Parameters in Data Mining

When performing data mining it is crucial to understand far beyond file extension that it is even possible to search particular terms, for example: if you are data mining for structural engineer's association of California and you key in "association of California" without quotation marks the search engine will display hundreds of sites having "association" and "California" in their search keywords. If you key in "association of California" with quotation marks, the search engine will display only sites having exactly the phrase "association of California" within the text. If you type in "association of California" site:.com, the search engine will display only sites having "association of California" in the text, from only business organizations.

If you find it difficult it is better to outsource data mining to companies like Online Web Research Services

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5608012

Note:

Delta Ray is experienced web scraping consultant and writes articles on Extract Amazon Website, Product Details Scraping, Amazon Product Scraping, Linkedin Email Scraping, Screen Scraping Services, Yelp Review Scraping and yellowpages data scraping etc.

Data Mining Process - Why Outsource Data Mining Service?

Overview of Data Mining and Process:
Data mining is one of the unique techniques for investigating information to extract certain data patterns and decide to outcome of existing requirements. Data mining is widely use in client research, services analysis, market research and so on. It is totally based on mathematical algorithm and analytical skills to drive the desired results from the huge database collection.

Information mining is mostly used by financial analyzer, business and professional organization and also there are many growing area of business that are get maximum advantages of data extract with use of data warehouses in their small to large level of businesses.

Most of functionalities which are used in information collecting process define as under:

* Retrieving Data

* Analyzing Data

* Extracting Data

* Transforming Data

* Loading Data

* Managing Databases

Most of small, medium and large levels of businesses are collect huge amount of data or information for analysis and research to develop business. Such kind of large amount will help and makes it much important whenever information or data required.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3789102

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Delta Ray is experienced web scraping consultant and writes articles on Extract Amazon Website, Product Details Scraping, Amazon Product Scraping, Linkedin Email Scraping, Screen Scraping Services, Yelp Review Scraping and yellowpages data scraping etc.

Amazon Product Extraction Is a Good Natural Ingredient

Promo Program offers the authors make use of Amazon; you can significantly increase their number. Provide a clear picture of your book cover to start the process. Amazon's on your listing page, the page that each visitor first sees. Immediate sale of a cover image page without losing momentum.

Each new dream author, listed on Amazon. Winner your book is just on the site will generate the purchase. But with a modest amount of effort, you will find that building really sells. Book that will excite prospective buyers and a description of the type presented in your book cover. It "will appear under the product." This is a book you wrote about you in what you want to have a chance.

Too often a book review publications and will take time and try to place it. Smart authors review the various sentences and kept them on the site. In addition to publishing excerpts from reviews, to reach out to you as many ads as possible book. It has proven to be a very effective sales tool and books more than the Amazon is now offering lists.

It is less known that the Blurbs written by people who praise the book. He was also the page of your listing section is held. Commentators, including review by a good cross section of the power to your listing. 1,000 members of the Amazon top reviewers, experts in the subject of your book and writing publishing industry, including well-known people.

One to five gold stars, you are probably familiar with Amazon rating system. Book reviewer believes is better than the star. The site is only permitted to post this to the person writing the review, and that person must be a customer of Amazon.

If you Biological, commercial aspect of your lives, your achievements, you have written and published books, awards you've received, etc. should be done to reduce stress. This is not a personal biography; this book is to help sales. Amazon also depends on you to provide a bibliography, if you have more than one book. It is also the author through the Union.

New and more exciting additions to a page section called Amazon on the page to a feed to your blogs allows. If you do not have a blogs, you can easily and can post directly to the page.

You enjoy writing short stories and essays for them, Amazon is an "Amazon Shorts" selected pieces in E appear in book form and sell at 49cents. You receive a percentage of sales. Another program available for you to make money and be Are you a book or your own website to advertise other products on the Amazon list. A link to Amazon is to determine the actual sale is consummated.

Percent of the value of the sold items you receive. Amazon to banner advertising system will accommodate your site. The master of the retailer tie-ins that you can check on your own doing. You can find many of them in the excellent book "Sell Your Book on Amazon." But at least follow through on the suggestions in this article and see your book sales boom.

Source: http://articles.pubarticles.com/amazon-product-extraction-is-a-good-natural-ingredient-1324879155,638055.html

Note:

Delta Ray is experienced web scraping consultant and writes articles on Extract Amazon Website, Product Details Scraping, Amazon Product Scraping, Linkedin Email Scraping, Screen Scraping Services, Yelp Review Scraping and yellowpages data scraping etc.