Describe the history and core business of each company.
Amazon was founded in 1994 by a man whose name is Jeff Bezos. Mr. Bezos originally started Amazon in his garage. He believed that only the internet had the ability to grant consumers the convenience of being able to browse a myriad selection of book titles in the shortest amount of time. In 1995 he started the website Amazon.com which was primarily an online book store at the time. “During the first 30 days of business, Amazon .com fulfilled orders for customers in 50 states and 45 countries- all shipped from his Seattle-area garage” (Overview, n.d.). In Two years later in 1997 Amazon went on to become public being listed on NASDAQ under the trade symbol of AMZN. Since then Amazon has expanded its consumer base by adding multiple products, features, and upgrades. The company now employs over 43,200 employees worldwide and is considered a world-class e-commerce platform.
Borders bookstore was founded in 1971 by two brothers by the name of Tom and Louis Borders while they were attending college at the University of Michigan. Borders bookstore was once a leading retailer of books and educational items with stores located throughout the United States, Australia, and Puerto Rico. In 1984 Kmart acquired a company by the name of Waldenbooks and in 1992 Kmart acquired Borders only to merge the two in hopes of generating greater sales (Borders Book Store, 2011). In 1997 Borders launched its first international store in Singapore that was 32,000 square feet making it the largest bookstore in the country. In 1998 things quickly began to change for the worst after being one of the country’s leading bookstores. Several stores began to close due to competition and Borders failing to change their business model. With technology and customer demands rapidly changing Borders was unable to keep up with the times forcing them to