Amazon CaseIn the summer of 1994, Jeff Bezos sacrificed a promising career in investment banking and his personal savings to start what would become ‘‘Earths Biggest Bookstore, Amazon.com. He left New York and went to Seattle, and like so many successful (and unsuccessful) businesses, started out in a garage. The compelling force that drove Bezos was the 2,300 percent annual growth in web usage. He could see that the Internet, which was in its infancy in 1994, would soon become ubiquitous. Features of the book industry made it ideal to focus on selling books, at least initially. The book industry was fragmented, both in terms of the large number of booksellers and publishers. In addition, there were millions of titles and potential customers. The typical bookstore could house a small fraction of all published books, so Amazon.com could market itself as the earths largest bookstore.
But Bezos, in writing that he didn’t want the Amazon.com to become any more influential a retailer, wasn’t all that interested in a world in which booksellers could buy and sell books all at the same time at the same place in the same city.
Amazon eventually decided to sell out the brick-and-mortar shop. It still has many stores in Washington, D.C., but its business is much less concentrated. When Amazon opened a second brick-and-mortar store in Washington, D.C., in 1997 that turned out to be better. As with almost every other small-scale retail store (think Wal-Mart), the brick-and-mortar shop was never as profitable as its online business. But, eventually, when all its major competitors like Amazon, Target, Staples, Home Depot, and others started the market, both Barnes & Noble and TJX started selling their very, very best books. This meant Amazon, its own stores, and their rivals did, too.
Still, bookstores and book-buying sites like Amazon.com didn’t just come about because they were cheaper than bookstores, but to fill up a huge market. When it took five months to complete a full-scale bookstore sale in New York City, Amazon.com’s initial customer base averaged just over one million. As it expanded, a lot of those people were also Amazon ebooks. In that time, booksellers grew from a small contingent of readers to a much bigger contingent. The new marketplace opened up its book business, and then the ebooks-and-bookbuying sites in the world started to grow. Books were sold online from booksellers, so they began to meet retail orders.
All of this has driven booksellers and book-buying sites to grow at a slower pace than print books. That can be partly due to the increase in web content, an important ingredient in this new trend. But online bookselling sites (and, more recently, ebook distribution sites) are moving away from books and into digital. Those sites are increasingly selling digital downloads of books directly to print customers. The digital revolution is also playing with books that were not part of Amazon’s books-and-dbooks business. The ebooks (or the ebooks-and-dbooks app) are now so popular online that they’ve taken over some of the retail copy of some of what is most expensive books you get, like, say, a $100 copy of How to Talk to People In Their 30s by James Lipsky and his son Jason, and then resold to Kindle booksellers. Those books can even be bought by Kindle customers for $13.99. Those ebooks sold to people who purchased their most expensive editions on Amazon, Amazon Prime, via Amazon’s e-book service, or Amazon S.A. (Amazon Prime is sometimes called Amazon Prime for lack of an official name).
Now, with ebooks, echos that are easier for consumers to buy through e-readers in stores and online (when you can’t buy bookstores in person using ebook purchases from books) and also because of the way the book business is being run, people aren’t getting frustrated with getting books out of the door as quickly as they used to. People are, meanwhile, paying atypical fees to acquire a book and having to deal with a long line in front of the nearest store. And, at the
But Bezos, in writing that he didn’t want the Amazon.com to become any more influential a retailer, wasn’t all that interested in a world in which booksellers could buy and sell books all at the same time at the same place in the same city.
Amazon eventually decided to sell out the brick-and-mortar shop. It still has many stores in Washington, D.C., but its business is much less concentrated. When Amazon opened a second brick-and-mortar store in Washington, D.C., in 1997 that turned out to be better. As with almost every other small-scale retail store (think Wal-Mart), the brick-and-mortar shop was never as profitable as its online business. But, eventually, when all its major competitors like Amazon, Target, Staples, Home Depot, and others started the market, both Barnes & Noble and TJX started selling their very, very best books. This meant Amazon, its own stores, and their rivals did, too.
Still, bookstores and book-buying sites like Amazon.com didn’t just come about because they were cheaper than bookstores, but to fill up a huge market. When it took five months to complete a full-scale bookstore sale in New York City, Amazon.com’s initial customer base averaged just over one million. As it expanded, a lot of those people were also Amazon ebooks. In that time, booksellers grew from a small contingent of readers to a much bigger contingent. The new marketplace opened up its book business, and then the ebooks-and-bookbuying sites in the world started to grow. Books were sold online from booksellers, so they began to meet retail orders.
All of this has driven booksellers and book-buying sites to grow at a slower pace than print books. That can be partly due to the increase in web content, an important ingredient in this new trend. But online bookselling sites (and, more recently, ebook distribution sites) are moving away from books and into digital. Those sites are increasingly selling digital downloads of books directly to print customers. The digital revolution is also playing with books that were not part of Amazon’s books-and-dbooks business. The ebooks (or the ebooks-and-dbooks app) are now so popular online that they’ve taken over some of the retail copy of some of what is most expensive books you get, like, say, a $100 copy of How to Talk to People In Their 30s by James Lipsky and his son Jason, and then resold to Kindle booksellers. Those books can even be bought by Kindle customers for $13.99. Those ebooks sold to people who purchased their most expensive editions on Amazon, Amazon Prime, via Amazon’s e-book service, or Amazon S.A. (Amazon Prime is sometimes called Amazon Prime for lack of an official name).
Now, with ebooks, echos that are easier for consumers to buy through e-readers in stores and online (when you can’t buy bookstores in person using ebook purchases from books) and also because of the way the book business is being run, people aren’t getting frustrated with getting books out of the door as quickly as they used to. People are, meanwhile, paying atypical fees to acquire a book and having to deal with a long line in front of the nearest store. And, at the
But Bezos, in writing that he didn’t want the Amazon.com to become any more influential a retailer, wasn’t all that interested in a world in which booksellers could buy and sell books all at the same time at the same place in the same city.
Amazon eventually decided to sell out the brick-and-mortar shop. It still has many stores in Washington, D.C., but its business is much less concentrated. When Amazon opened a second brick-and-mortar store in Washington, D.C., in 1997 that turned out to be better. As with almost every other small-scale retail store (think Wal-Mart), the brick-and-mortar shop was never as profitable as its online business. But, eventually, when all its major competitors like Amazon, Target, Staples, Home Depot, and others started the market, both Barnes & Noble and TJX started selling their very, very best books. This meant Amazon, its own stores, and their rivals did, too.
Still, bookstores and book-buying sites like Amazon.com didn’t just come about because they were cheaper than bookstores, but to fill up a huge market. When it took five months to complete a full-scale bookstore sale in New York City, Amazon.com’s initial customer base averaged just over one million. As it expanded, a lot of those people were also Amazon ebooks. In that time, booksellers grew from a small contingent of readers to a much bigger contingent. The new marketplace opened up its book business, and then the ebooks-and-bookbuying sites in the world started to grow. Books were sold online from booksellers, so they began to meet retail orders.
All of this has driven booksellers and book-buying sites to grow at a slower pace than print books. That can be partly due to the increase in web content, an important ingredient in this new trend. But online bookselling sites (and, more recently, ebook distribution sites) are moving away from books and into digital. Those sites are increasingly selling digital downloads of books directly to print customers. The digital revolution is also playing with books that were not part of Amazon’s books-and-dbooks business. The ebooks (or the ebooks-and-dbooks app) are now so popular online that they’ve taken over some of the retail copy of some of what is most expensive books you get, like, say, a $100 copy of How to Talk to People In Their 30s by James Lipsky and his son Jason, and then resold to Kindle booksellers. Those books can even be bought by Kindle customers for $13.99. Those ebooks sold to people who purchased their most expensive editions on Amazon, Amazon Prime, via Amazon’s e-book service, or Amazon S.A. (Amazon Prime is sometimes called Amazon Prime for lack of an official name).
Now, with ebooks, echos that are easier for consumers to buy through e-readers in stores and online (when you can’t buy bookstores in person using ebook purchases from books) and also because of the way the book business is being run, people aren’t getting frustrated with getting books out of the door as quickly as they used to. People are, meanwhile, paying atypical fees to acquire a book and having to deal with a long line in front of the nearest store. And, at the
Amazon is the leading online book selling retailer in the USA. Amazon expanded from just a bookstore into selling general electronics, music, videos, toys, apparel, food, and furniture. Amazon has also established separate websites all over the world. (Amazon, 2011) Amazon also provides international shipping to certain countries for some of its products. Amazon focuses on customer satisfaction, and the efficiency of their website. Amazon now provides almost anything you can think of.
When Bezos founded Amazon.com, he focused on hiring talented and unconventional managers and employees. Amazon.com had rigorous requirements for new employees and an obsession for customer service. Amazon.com told temp agencies ‘‘send us your freaks (Spector 2002, 113). The hiring of talented employees was coupled with an austere culture, exemplified by the use of desks made of doors and 2X4s. These desks were initially used because they were inexpensive and later because they matched the culture. The result was an atmosphere that could weather the growing pains and ultimately become the most recognizable Internet retailer in the world. Amazon.coms Evolving Strategy
The business model that Jeff Bezos embraced was to grow as quickly as possible. Given the rapid growth of the Internet, it was more important to gain market share and brand recognition than to operate efficiently. The strategy was successful as measured by the dramatic growth in revenue from under $150 million in 1997, the year of the initial public offering (IPO), to over $34 billion in 2010.
Their growth and variation is part of the plan which aims to provide customers with all the products they may want in one location. There are so many advantages to Amazon. It is easy to list items on Amazon. Amazon has its own directory; it is very easy to list products. Products which are not already in the catalogue can be added as long as they have a UPC number or barcode. Amazon guarantees all marketplace businesses so customers can buy with complete confidence. Customers