Rather famously, Amazon in its early days included the cost of fulfillment (shipping, warehousing, etc.) in Sales and Marketing expense, not COGS. As a result, gross margins were thought to be somewhat inflated.
Apparently they also counted their equity investments in the stock of companies including Webvan and Sotheby's as cash and marketable securities.
At the time, analysts were worried about what all this implied for operating cash flow and gross margin.
What they were selling was $40 gift certificates for $20.
Then they sold a $30 good for a $40 gift certificate.
They recorded this as a $40 sale with a $30 cost and $20 marketing. The implication that you can eventually cut back on the marketing, which is obviously false.
IMO, the $40 should never appear in anything that could be construed as revenues. Sure, you can work it such that you'll end up with the proper ($10) loss, but they never received an actual $40, their only (well, majority) revenue appeared in the form of $20 payments from the group selling the gift certificates.
Rather famously, Amazon in its early days included the cost of fulfillment (shipping, warehousing, etc.) in Sales and Marketing expense, not COGS. As a result, gross margins were thought to be somewhat inflated.
Apparently they also counted their equity investments in the stock of companies including Webvan and Sotheby's as cash and marketable securities.
At the time, analysts were worried about what all this implied for operating cash flow and gross margin.