Stack it high. Sell it higher.
So this morning, and only for a fleeting moment, did I consider buying cigarette lighters from Alibaba at 4 cents each. Minimum order, 100,000 of them!
I only need about 500 to see me out, and would then be left with 99,500. Obviously I couldn't sell them on Alibaba at 50p each, but I could on Amazon or Ebay.
Based on that, I can assume the $35Bn in revenue that AWS generates, comes from $3Bn of stock being sold on at hugely inflated prices, to a public that has little idea of how much factory gate prices are.
Napoleon might have been right to slur the Brit's as a nation full of shop keepers, but seeing as the three essential things necessary to fight a successful war is gold, gold and more gold, he should have realised, retailers were always best placed to win in any conflict.
As for the sodomite reference that he goes on to sleight us with, I can only assume it is a metaphor for the act of selling goods at ten times their cost to your customers.