On Thursday Eastern Time, Amazon released a "disappointing" second-quarter financial report: Although the company's profits in the second quarter exceeded expectations, the company's performance guidance for the third quarter was a disappointment to investors.

After the financial report was released, Brian Olsavsky, Chief Financial Officer of Amazon, revealed an important reason for the pessimistic outlook to media reporters: Donald Trump and the Olympics.

Trump distracted consumers.

Although both Trump and the Olympics seem irrelevant to Amazon's business, Amazon's CFO pointed out a surprising key point: Both have diverted consumers' attention.

On July 13th of this year, when Trump attended a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. Although he escaped unharmed, his dynamic activities attracted sustained global attention in the following days.

The Olympics are similar. As a sports event held only once every four years, the Olympics have always been highly regarded. Due to the controversial opening ceremony of this year's Olympics, it has aroused global attention and discussion. This means that this year's Olympic Games from July 26th to August 11th will continue to attract people's attention.

But this is definitely not good news for Internet e-commerce platforms such as Amazon.

"Customers' attention is limited," Olsavsky said. "When high-profile things happen, or like the assassination a few weeks ago, you will see people shift their attention to the news."

Of course, for Olsavsky, factors such as Trump and the Olympics should only bring short-term fluctuations to Amazon's business. After these news are diluted, the temporarily reduced sales volume is expected to return, but these fluctuations at least increase the difficulty of predicting Amazon's performance.

"Most of the time, purchases will be delayed, and you know people will come back to buy what they originally planned to buy," he said.

"Cannot deny the impact of economic weakness."

Amazon expects revenue for the third quarter ending in September to reach US$154 billion to US$158.5 billion, with a midpoint of US$156.25 billion. This midpoint expectation is lower than the market's general prediction of US$158.24 billion.

This disappointing guidance caused Amazon's stock price to fall more than 7% in after-hours trading on Thursday. As of the publication deadline, Amazon's stock price fell 8.92% in pre-market trading on Friday.

At the moment of handing over such a disappointing outlook, Amazon executives also know well that "explosive news" will not be the only factor affecting consumer spending patterns.

On a telephone conference call between Amazon executives and investment bank analysts, they also admitted that the factor that affects consumer expectations for spending is economic weakness.

Amazon executives stated that due to the economic weakness in the United States, consumers continue to be cautious about spending and are more inclined to buy cheaper goods, which means that the average selling price (ASP) of products sold is lower.

"Consumers continue to reduce shopping prices as much as possible. For us, the sales growth of more freely available and higher-priced products such as computers, electronics, and televisions is obviously slower than in the strong economy period," Jassy said.

Olsavsky also stated in a media conference call that consumers "continue to be cautious" and focus more on purchasing daily necessities, which helps explain the reason why Amazon's income in this quarter was "slightly insufficient".