...Seattle Washington. Amazon is the largest online retailer in the world and produces consumer goods, electronics, e-books and is also a provider of cloud computer services. Founded by its current CEO Jeff Bezos in 1994, Amazon went online officially in 1996. The name was derived from the Amazon River in the legendary female warriors of Greek mythology. Amazon was originally an online bookstore that eventually expanded its product line to meet the demands of the online community. Amazon employees over 69,000 people and have offices, call centers and warehouses in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The global Fortune 500 list of 2012 ranks Amazon at a raking of number 206 their previous ranking from 2011 was # 270 ("Top Global 500 Companies," 2012, p. 1). Current operating results In the most recent quarter, July 2012, Amazon reported a net income of $7 million with sales revenue at $12.8 billion. This showed a growth from the second quarter of 2011 where revenue was at $9.91 billion. Forecasters have been fairly conservative for any growth for retailer’s even though Amazon still achieves growth within every quarter. Amazon actually was extremely cautious in prior quarters that they may even lose money due to the condition of the economy. The main reason that is contributed to Amazon’s current growth is there international sales. 44% of Amazons revenue is now contributed to its international sales even though the world economy has been stagnant. Amazon was concerned that...
Words: 1490 - Pages: 6
...Evaluate whether amazon should be regulated due to its monopoly power (12) Amazon should be regulated due to its monopoly power, as the working conditions for its employees are awful. The company treat workers abusively- an example of this being where Amazon hired paramedics to revive workers suffering from heat-related problems rather than buy air conditioners. Due to their dominance in the book market, amazon have become a 21st century monopoly and thus seem to only care about their profits as a posed to the conditions of their workers. The consequence of this is that Amazon may have a negative image in the media and may lose repeat customers due to their unethical ways. Secondly, Amazon should be regulated due to the brutal way that they also deal with suppliers. Amazon have frequent and on-going fights between their publisher ‘Hatchette’ over the pricing of eBooks. With amazon holding 65% of the e-book market, the company tried to level the pricing of e-books across the board- however other companies objected. Amazon also squeezed the publisher by delaying delivery of its books- sometimes by week. This difficult relationship between amazon, its suppliers and competitors means that the company is isolating itself. This could be a negative as suppliers may not be willing to give them their supplies if they become more and more inconvenient. Also, having good relations with other possible competitors could increase profits for the company as they may be able to work together...
Words: 512 - Pages: 3
...business? Amazons primary industry is electronic commerce. At its core Amazon is an electronic commerce retailer. But over the years the brand has developed into something grander. Originally the company started out as an online bookstore but now has diversified its inventory to include dvds, software, video games, electronics, furniture, apparel, food, toys, and jewelry. Amazon has also become a producer of their own brand of consumer electronics, most notably their line of Kindle e-book readers, Fire Tablets, Fire TV, Fire phone, and is now a leading provider of cloud computing services. Now Amazon is starting to introduce a new service called Amazon Fresh. Amazon Fresh will bring the grocery shopping experience into the comfort of your home. The customer will be able to order his or her groceries through Amazon and have them delivered the very same day. Fast and convenient, no longer will one have to make the tedious trek out to the supermarket in order to load up on food. The difficulty in identifying a primary competitor is the fact that no company comes close to doing everything that Amazon does. Sure there are plenty of companies that specialize in selling some of the items that are found on Amazon.com, but nowhere else will you be able to order a used copy of an algebra textbook your son needs for school, a diamond pendant for your wife’s upcoming birthday, and milk and eggs for your refrigerator. There is nothing like Amazon in the world, and the fact that Amazon is constantly...
Words: 1077 - Pages: 5
...their supply chain strategy. Amazon is one of the leading online retailers in the world. From foundation, Amazon was an online book retailer. Their online success allowed them to move into other areas including e-books, music and other products. Jeff Bezos, Founder, started the business in his garage and has built the company on an unconventional business model that in my opinion gives Amazon a competitive advantage. Amazons business model consists of a combination of logistical processes and information services that work together to provide a sustainable competitive advantage. Amazon provides shopping convenience to consumers, products can be ordered at the click of a button without the hassle of the retail store experience. Consumers experience an easy purchasing experience with a variety of payment methods such as paypal, bill me later, and credit card payments. As an added convenience consumers can set up accounts and save payment information for future purchases. Amazon has a very fast turn-around time for items fulfilled in Amazon fulfillment centers. In many cases consumers can expect their products to be shipped within a 24 hour period. As an additional service to consumers, Amazon provides what they call “decision enabling information”. Amazon compares products and pricing, provides consumer product reviews and ratings, and provides detailed product descriptions to aid consumers in making the best product purchase decisions. Amazon also has a wide selection of products...
Words: 1055 - Pages: 5
...stores at the height of their success but after years of debt the struggling company could not withstand the changing times and competitive market. Meanwhile, Amazon survived the worst of the struggling economy and competitive market at its peak during hardship. Amazon a fortune 500 company with many other diversified items to greater serves the public and its loyal customers. In times of adversity and economy failure Amazon found ways to adapt to the changing conditions of the market, contemporaneously Borders went on a downward spiral and never recovered. Introduction The history of Amazon and Borders Books goes back to times of great success at the height of competition in online shopping. Realizing the popularity of online shopping Amazon started changing with the time, which was the differences between them and Borders because paperbacks were becoming obsolete just like everything else within society after the Internet. Amazon one of the first big companies to sell books over the Internet in 1994 quickly diversified with numerous other items (Schneider, 2011). Borders management did not see the need to change its structure to effectively compete with other companies within the same business until it was too late, this proved to be a fatal mistake. By Borders outsourcing their online books to Amazon (their competitor) that alone added to their downfall. 1. Describe the history and core businesses of each company. When Amazon started its online business...
Words: 1368 - Pages: 6
...the E-commerce, Amazon.com has positioned itself to becoming a household name. To gain an understanding at how Amazon.com has managed to accomplish this, their history should be understood, the regulations, issues and opportunities should be reviewed and the website experiences should also be explored. Once these are done, the phenomenon that Amazon.com is today can be grasped and understood. History of Amazon Amazon is the largest online e-business in America founded in 1994 by Jeffrey Bezos. Amazon original worked as an online bookstore branching into clothing, gourmet food, watches, jewelry, baby product, apparel, and many other products by 1999. To keep up with changing times and competition Amazon developed their prime service. Amazon prime released in 2005 gave customers the option of fast delivery by paying on flat rate each month. America was the birth place of Amazon, but Amazon has now spread too many markets like Japan, France, The United Kingdom, and Germany with plans to expand to other markets in the future. According to "The History of Amazon" (2016), “Amazon also experimented with online auctioning forging an unsuccessful partnership with Sotheby’s but was unable to break eBay’s stranglehold on this...
Words: 1155 - Pages: 5
...Nguyen Quoc Khanh BUS 103 Case 3: Amazon: One E- Store to Rule Them All. 1. In what way does Bezos’s decision to develop and deliver the Kindle show systematic and intuitive thinking? First, Bezos has shown his intuitive thinking in the decision of unveiling Amazon Kindle, a new device that is completely outside Apple’s catalog though Amazon still sold Apple’s iPod. Furthermore, he introduced to Medias his product, it seemed like a declaration to Apple. Because Apple is a giant of technological industry, so the situation would be complex to be its competitor. However, it was the only way to make a technological evolution by Kindle. As a result, this situation required Bezos to have a quick and broad evaluation for making the decision. Besides, the systematic thinking of Bezos was shown by introducing the free application “Kindle for iPhone and iPod Touch” when he realized the benefit of allowing readers to read books on a variety of devices. After, in order to upgrade Kindle, Amazon acquired Touchco Company, which specialized in touch screen technology. These decisions are systematic because Bezos had to analyze the situation step- by- step, thoroughly and carefully with full of information towards an effective and logical decision. 2. How do you describe the competitive risk in Amazon.com’s environment as it leads the market for digital book downloads? Being the leader of digital book downloads market; Amazon.com is likely to face to the competitive risk from another...
Words: 1019 - Pages: 5
...in Washington State selling books. However, in 1994, Nick Hanauer took an interest in Bezos business and invested $40,000, and in 1995 Tom Alburg invested $100,000 to join this venture. After receiving these investments Bezos decided to create a website that would be more appealing to customers and hoped to get his business to take off. Over the next three years Amazon increase in book sales, which amazed Bezos because after an analysis was completed he was shocked to find out outside of local customers who were purchasing books from Amazons but customers around the world. In 1997, Amazon reached revenue in the amount of $15.7 million. By 1998, Amazon was starting to show signs of success when Bezos started listing new products for the customers could purchase online (Amazon.com Mission Statement, 2012). Vision and Mission - The mission statement for Amazon.com success is centered on their customers and without their customers Amazon would not exist. Although customers are a large part of a business success of a strong leader who can make proper decision helps the business in the right direction. Amazons vision and mission was “Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online” (Amazon.com Mission Statement, 2012, p. 1). Customers -...
Words: 3158 - Pages: 13
...Industry Amazon: Rivalry among competitors is high. Since Amazon offers such an extensive selection there are more companies competing with its products and services. They have direct competition from EBay and Barnes & Nobles. EBay: Just like Amazon, EBay faces high competitions. Like eBay number of companies offer the same service and products to the market. Threat of New entry Amazon: Threat of new entrants is low. It would be virtually impossible for a new company to reach the magnitude of inventory and status that Amazon maintains. Amazon has been in the market for over 15 years now and it would be extremely difficult for a startup company in the industry to raise enough capital to compete with Amazon even on a lower level. EBay: Compared to Amazon, the threat is relatively high because any company can act as a third party just like EBay to help people sell and buy the products. But when compared to other companies the threat is low because of the brand value or the trust people have when they buy or sell the product. Threat of Substitutes Amazon: One would expect substitutes to be high but, Amazon offers good products at low prices, provides fast shipping and excellent customer service. Given these advantages, I would believe that threat of substitutes is reduced from high to medium EBay: Faces threats from Amazon. But, due to strong brand value the threat from other companies is relatively medium. Bargaining power of Suppliers Amazon: Power...
Words: 560 - Pages: 3
...originally named Cadabra Inc. They found that the name was often negatively mistaken as “Cadaver.” The name Amazon was adopted soon after because the Amazon River is the largest in the world, and the letter “A” would help the company to show up at the top of alphabetical lists. Amazon, since its release in 1995, has become one of the Fortune 500 e-commerce company (btmaushart.iweb, 2014). In the business world, Amazon is currently the largest online retailer in the world. It manufactures consumer electronics, most widely known is the Amazon Kindle e-book reader, and has an extensive cloud computing service. Amazon’s start-up was initially only an online bookstore, giving Amazon an advantage of having more and readily available books than any long-established brick-and-mortar book store. By the last 1990’s, Amazon’s success had enabled an expansion from an online bookstore to a wide variety of other products including, but not limited to: CDs, videos, DVDs, electronics, toys, tools, home furnishings, and more. In addition to those products from Amazon, Amazon also sells products from well-known retailers through intermediaries’ agreements. Among those retailers are Toysrus.com Inc., Target Corporation, and Circuit City Stores Inc (FundingUniverse.com, 2014). Amazon takes on a face of a company that came out of nowhere and took over the internet in terms of e-commerce. Amazon has customized the way people can buy things online and continues to come up with new technology and obtain...
Words: 1072 - Pages: 5
...Amazon started in 1994, as an online retailer for books. Founder Jeff Bezos believed that e-commerce was the future of retail and the low price per piece and many number of titles made books an attractive starting point (Textbook, 319). Today Amazon has grown into one of the world’s largest companies with revenues in excess of $30 billion per quarter, as customers are able to purchase almost anything they like, delivered to their doorstep with the click of a button (Textbook, 321). Although the case study only mentions Amazon Go, Amazon has recently acquired Whole Foods to further immerse themselves in the grocery industry. Since the inception of Amazon.com, the online retail giant has diversified into multiple different sectors....
Words: 1854 - Pages: 8
...Ana Gonzalez Professor Andreassi MGT-101-A 6 October 2014 Case 4: Amazon: One E-Store to Rule Them All 1) The CEO of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos, effectively employed both intuitive and systematic thinking when he developed the Kindle for sale. Through Bezos’s creative idea in the Kindle, one can see that he makes decisions that seem to be based off of intuitive thinking. With this approach, people make decisions according to their past experiences and gut feelings, as opposed to analyzing all of the facts. Bezos took a risk in the creation of the Kindle going off of his gut feelings that it would be a successful idea. From previous experiences, he knew that “music and video have been digitalized for a long time, and short-form reading has been digitized, beginning with the early Web. But long-form reading really hasn’t”. The company needed a push to rise above their competitor, Apple, and Bezos was able to provide a creative idea that he thought would work based off of things he has experienced. Fortunately for Amazon, his intuitive idea was a success and “Amazon now sells more Kindle books than paperback books”. On the other hand, the development of the Kindle also reveals Bezos’s ability to think systematically. Systematic thinking involves a “rational, step-by-step, analytical” approach to problem solving. Someone who thinks systematically tends to use facts and details to lead him/her to decisions. Also, systematic thinkers often break down problems into smaller...
Words: 915 - Pages: 4
... Colombia Southern University Why has Amazon.com succeeded online when so many other companies have failed? Amazon Inc. is an American international e-commerce business. It started by Jeffrey P. Bezos in the year 1994. It is a world’s largest online retailer, the company managed to survive and successful, while many other companies failed. Amazon.com success largely depends on its ability to structure its business model in unexpected ways (Business Insider) Amazon.com provides a massive volume of products from various retailers, giving consumers a variety of options to choose from at a twenty four hour, seven days and three hundred and sixty days in the year. Consumer, again have the option to shop at any time of the day and could purchase all items needed at one time without having to go from store to store. To make it easier for consumers, Amazon.com “creates personalized storefronts for each customer by providing more information and more choices than could be found in a typical neighborhood store. Amazon.com survival and success also depended on its different ventures and willingness to invest in the latest internet technology, which intend made shopping online faster, easier and more personally rewarding to consumers and retailers. The ability to position its self not only as a bookstore but also as a technology company has not only increase the success of Amazon.com but has also met the retailing needs of companies of virtually all sizes and different products. ...
Words: 1466 - Pages: 6
...Amazon is one of the few doc companies that managed to ride the wave of the doc.com bust and transformed itself from being on the brink of bankruptcy to a success. Amazon is a global leader in online-retail. From its birth in 1994 to 2000, Amazon.com implemented a number of changes to its business strategy in attempt to stay on top of the e-commerce industry. Amazon.com started in 1994 as a simple online book retailer. Under this initial strategy, Amazon was receiving all of its revenue from its book sales (sales revenue model), and was popular because it was the first online retailer to do so. Before the dot-com bust, amazon has gradually changing its business model from a simple online retail bookstore into an online superstore offering books, music, videos, toys, video games, consumer electrics, software and a full line of kitchen and home improvement products. In 2000, through a series of equity partnerships with leading online retailers, Amazon has expanded its marketplace model. Despite the company’s success in expanding and its growing popularity, Amazon faces a serious challenge of generating profits. One challenge was to achieve profitability before cash ran out and operations would have to cease or go bankrupt. Another more serious challenge is wheter the business model could develop into a competitive advantage that would be difficult to imitate by the competition. I would definitely partner with more non dot-come companies and entering more deals like this...
Words: 547 - Pages: 3
...necessary for a company, such as Amazon, to be successful in a continuously advancing world. Many external and internal factors influence the performance of the four functions of management within Amazon. Some internal factors include ethics, diversity, and innovation. Ethics affects the leadership and controlling functions of management, while diversity and innovation utilizes the leading and organizational functions of management. Some external factors that affect the four functions of management include technology and globalization. The need of technology and globalization takes organizational planning in order to keep up with the increasing demand of readily available products at Amazon across the world. One major factor to a company’s success is the moral and ethical integrity of Amazon’s management team. Amazon’s ethical stance determines the quality of employees the company is able to retain, as well as maintaining their loyalty to the company. If managers display ethical integrity, the employees would be stimulated to perform well, building leadership within the company. If Amazon does not practice ethical integrity, the employees do not perform to their best. This may cause late shipments, or damaged product. This low quality performance would be hard to turn around since they stem from the company's missed opportunity. Likewise, the ethical integrity of Amazon reflects on their customer patronage, ultimately leading to the success of the company. A customer who is...
Words: 1174 - Pages: 5
