如何寻找超级成长股？世界首富24封股东信“吐露天机”：现金流比利润更重要(21)

We have significant data related to price elasticity。 With fair accuracy， we can predict that a price reduction of a certain percentage will result in anincrease in units sold of a certain percentage。 With rare exceptions， the volume increase in the short term is never enough to pay for the price decrease。
然而，数量上的弹性分析是短期的。我们可以用数字来估算出，降价在本周和本季度带来的结果，但我们不能用数字估算出，持续降价对我们生意未来五年和十年的影响。我们的判断是不断把效率提升和规模上升的好处用低价的方式回馈给顾客就像一个正循环，它从长期大幅增加公司现金流，有助于形成一个更有价值的亚马逊平台。我们对免费运和亚马逊金牌有相似的判断，它们短期是昂贵的，但长期是重要的和价值巨大的。
However， our quantitative understanding of elasticity is short-term。 We can estimate what a price reduction will do this week and this quarter。 But we cannot numerically estimate the effect that consistently lowering prices will have on our business over five years or ten years or more。 Our judgment is that relentlessly returning efficiency improvements and scale economies to customers in the form of lower prices creates a virtuous cycle that leads over the long term to a much larger dollar amount of free cash flow， and thereby to a much more valuable Amazon.com。