The Beginning
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994 because he regretted not investing in the Internet Business boom. Before it was Amazon it was known as Cadabra and Relentless both were considered too sinister or abstract. Amazon was the settled name because he wanted it to sound exotic and different and slowly it became the giant it is today.
Their Current Hold of the Market
Currently, there is no bigger online marketplace than Amazon, and it doesn’t seem like anyone will top Amazon anytime soon. The only other alternative that has similar market share on the internet is eBay, and that has less than half the keyword dominance as Amazon.
The biggest draw of Amazon was to sell books and make the book buying process easier. Through their creation of the Kindle, which only released a few months after the Nook by Barnes and Noble, they absorbed most of the eBook market and made it much easier for independent authors to publish without going through a publishing house.
Next, to streamline their online buying process, you can have two-day guaranteed shipping by having an Amazon Prime account. This has been one of the biggest advantages of Amazon for several years because all other online retailers now have to compete with price and convenience.
Their Products and Consumers
Amazon practices an amazing circuit of cyclical marketing. Everything that Amazon creates for consumers goes back to consumers and Amazon. If you buy their Kindle for their books, you can also have access to Amazon Music and Amazon Prime. This also links to audible.com, the online audiobook market owned by Amazon.
If you have Amazon Prime, you can have access to award winning shows that are produced by Amazon for Amazon as a way to secure people’s investments in Amazon prime.
By owning their products, by watching their shows, by shopping on their online marketplace, Amazon can mine all of this data and use it to get the consumer to use their products more and more. By increasing convenience, price, and deals, Amazon pushes itself harder than any other online company while also rewarding the consumer for their marketability.
Their Future Investments
Amazon had a patent and expressed interest in creating drone warehouses to increase the speed of shipments. In some test locations, you can have your items delivered in as little as two-hours due to this investment.
Amazon has made so many steps forward for eBooks that they have ended up walking in a circle with the release of their Book store that contains printed copies of books only found on Amazon.
Finally, just recently, Amazon purchased Whole Foods in a push to begin taking more of the grocery market. Now not only can you conveniently receive dry foods, canned foods, and other long shelf-life foods for wholesaler prices, you can also get fresh and nutritious food at ideal locations.