Jeff Bezos - Amazon.com - Building an Empire
Bezos, along with five employees, spent almost a year designing Amazon's easily-navigable, user-friendly layout and working on the best ways to source books. With the idea that Amazon should not only be a place to buy books but could become a community of bookbuyers, programs were developed to foster this atmosphere, one in particular allowed customers to write their own reviews of books and rate them. Another program was designed to suggest other books based what the customer has purchased previously.
Amazon.com, the self-proclaimed "Earth's Biggest Bookstore", was launched in July 1995 and rocketed forward with incredible success. By September 1996, more than 100 employees worked for Amazon and over $15.7 million in merchandise had been sold. In 1999, there were more than 3000 employees working for the company generating more than $610 million in sales for over 13 million customers globally. In 1999, Amazon.com accounted for 85% of the Internet's book sales. Despite this, Amazon did not make any profit over these first four years. Choosing to pour everything back into promotion and building Amazon's reputation as a recognizable brand name, Bezos was covetous of the number one spot before turning to his own personal profits.
Barnes & Noble felt threatened by this new presence on the Internet and set up its own e-store. Through a fiery marketing campaign, Barnes & Noble claimed that it could provide twice as many titles as Amazon. However, Barnes & Noble was behind the times as Bezos had by then already branched out into selling CDs through Amazon. No longer just "Earth's Biggest Bookstore", Amazon now boasted "Books, Music, and more". Just before the 1998 Christmas season, Bezos took Amazon yet another step further by expanding into toys and games. And he also instigated the "Shop the Web" program giving Amazon a commission when customers link to other (noncompeting) retailer's sites. In 1999, Amazon bought a share of Drugstore.com and now became a pharmacy as well. Following the success of eBay and uBID, Amazon joined with Sotheby's Holdings Inc. and introduced sothebys.amazon.com, another online auction site.
As Amazon expands into the Web's first superstore and continues to change in order to accommodate new products, Bezos, ever innovating e-commerce, insists on putting the customer before everything else. And it has paid off. Amazon.com has become the template for the way in which an e-commerce business should be operated.
Amazon.com, the self-proclaimed "Earth's Biggest Bookstore", was launched in July 1995 and rocketed forward with incredible success. By September 1996, more than 100 employees worked for Amazon and over $15.7 million in merchandise had been sold. In 1999, there were more than 3000 employees working for the company generating more than $610 million in sales for over 13 million customers globally. In 1999, Amazon.com accounted for 85% of the Internet's book sales. Despite this, Amazon did not make any profit over these first four years. Choosing to pour everything back into promotion and building Amazon's reputation as a recognizable brand name, Bezos was covetous of the number one spot before turning to his own personal profits.
Barnes & Noble felt threatened by this new presence on the Internet and set up its own e-store. Through a fiery marketing campaign, Barnes & Noble claimed that it could provide twice as many titles as Amazon. However, Barnes & Noble was behind the times as Bezos had by then already branched out into selling CDs through Amazon. No longer just "Earth's Biggest Bookstore", Amazon now boasted "Books, Music, and more". Just before the 1998 Christmas season, Bezos took Amazon yet another step further by expanding into toys and games. And he also instigated the "Shop the Web" program giving Amazon a commission when customers link to other (noncompeting) retailer's sites. In 1999, Amazon bought a share of Drugstore.com and now became a pharmacy as well. Following the success of eBay and uBID, Amazon joined with Sotheby's Holdings Inc. and introduced sothebys.amazon.com, another online auction site.
As Amazon expands into the Web's first superstore and continues to change in order to accommodate new products, Bezos, ever innovating e-commerce, insists on putting the customer before everything else. And it has paid off. Amazon.com has become the template for the way in which an e-commerce business should be operated.
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