Amazon.com, Inc. is an American e-commerce company based in Seattle. Its most famous specialty is the sale of books, but it has diversified into other products, including the sale of all types of cultural products: CDs, download music, DVD, digital cameras, computers and the household equipment, etc.
It was chosen to propose several sources competing for the products it offers, rather than having a unique affiliate strategy. This strategy deprives possible exclusive affiliate income, but can offer tighter price (so expect larger volumes). The company also acquires thus a neutral reputation making it a direct competitor to Google as a source of information on products.
Company History
Created by Jeff Bezos in July 1994, it was floated on Nasdaq in June 1997. The French subsidiary was opened in 2000. Amazon is one of “four Internet powers” with Apple, Google and Facebook.
In 2014, the company employed 132,600 people worldwide and established, besides the American original site (open 16 July 1995), specific sites for Germany (15 October 1998), the UK (15 October 1998 ), France (31 August 2000), Japan (31 October 2000), Canada (25 June 2002), China (September 7 2004), Italy (23 November 2010), Spain (14 September 2011 ), India (February 2 2012), Brazil (December 6 2012), Mexico (August 29 2013), Australia (November 12 2013) and the Netherlands (opened November 12 2014).
Amazon was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos. It said he was encouraged to create the company to “minimize [the] regret” that it would have been not to have benefited from the gold rush of the early to Internet. Amazon was originally a bookstore shop. While the biggest physical bookstores and mail order catalogs could provide up to 200,000 titles, an online bookstore could go much further.
Bezos wanted the name of his business starts with an A to show up early in alphabetical order. He began to look in the dictionary and stopped on amazon (Amazon) because it was a “exotic and different” place and that the river was considered the largest in the world, for he wanted the same for his entreprise. Since 2000, the Amazon logo shall incorporate an arrow going from A to Z forming a smile symbolizing the satisfaction of clients.
Amazon opened its service on July 16, 1995. The first book it sold was Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies by Douglas Hofstadter. Amazon made its IPO on June 15, 1997. The share trades under the name “AMZN” on the NASDAQ, and has a starting price of 18 USD.
Uniqe Business Plan
The initial business plan Amazon is not common. The company does not expect to make a profit for four to five years. Its growth “slow” has angered shareholders complaining that the company does not make a profit quickly enough. When the Internet bubble burst and many internet companies went bankrupt, Amazon held and eventually achieved its first profit in the last quarter of 2001: $ 5 million, or 1 cent per share on revenue of more than a billion.
Profit, albeit modest, was used to prove that the business model could be rentable. In 1999, Time magazine named Bezos’s Person of the Year, noting that his company was involved in popularizing e-commerce.
On May 12, 1997, Barnes & Noble Amazon sued in court, holding that his claim to be “the largest library in the world” was false because “[This] is not at all a bookstore. It is a book dealer. ” The case was eventually settled out of court. Amazon, however, continued to describe himself as “the largest bookstore in the world.” Walmart has also initiated legal action, October 16, 1998, accusing Amazon of stealing trade secrets by hiring former executives from Walmart. This case is also set to amiable.
In the late 1990s, Amazon is one with its compatriots AOL, Yahoo and EBay companies become famous thanks to a bull market capitalization of young companies unprecedented in history, which ends in crash, a phenomenon also affecting many small biotechnology companies, and junior mining companies.
Future Plans
The founder and current CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, announced July 28, 2014 that the company embarks on 3D printing. This growing sector with strong potential for the future according to the CEO of Amazon. The company is currently a choice of over 200 printable objects and the ability to offer a wide choice of materials. It also offers customers the choice of the size of the object and its color.
One of the major issues for Amazon regarding the conditions and costs of deliveries of its products. The goal is to optimize the time between the customer order on the platform and the delivery of the purchased item.
In December 2013, Jeff Bezos introduced the audience a delivery system drone “Prime Air“, “environmentally friendly”. However, the realization of this project may take some time as the legal, technical and safety are important. However, the group announced plans to test its service this year in Inde. In November 2014, the group began full-scale tests of delivery by drone in its Cambridge research center.
Two positions for aeronautical engineers able to drive the drones have also been ouverts. In February 2015, the United States, the Federal Aviation Authority (Federal Aviation Administration) made the project “Prime Air Drone”, prohibiting the flight of drones out of sight of their driver. The drones were provided with a range of 80 km and should be able to deliver parcels weighing up to 20 kilos
Furthermore, the group is testing a new taxi delivery service in California with the taxis Flywheel control application. The principle is simple, Amazon book order a taxi 10 products in time. The purpose of this maneuver is to reduce the cost of delivery, to show greater flexibility, timely delivery and outpace competitors in the “quest” of delivery day.
In its search for new customers, Amazon has since 2014 signed several partnerships with various universities Purdue University, University of Massachusetts Amherst and University of California Davis. The site has set up online store for students to enable them to acquire their manual. Moreover, lockers were installed on campus universities to allow students to get their order for free.
Since Amazon’s original purpose was to sell books I thought it might have been a good idea to make a list of the best books Amazon is selling in 2015. Here is my top 10 Amazon’s best selling books.
Read more:
- Top 10 Amazon’s Best Seller Books of 2015 10th-7th
- Top 10 Amazon’s Best Seller Books of 2015 6th-4th
- Top 10 Amazon’s Best Seller Books of 2015 3rd-1st