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Amazon

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Type: Public
Industry: e-Commerce
Founded: 1994
Headquarters: Washington
Country: United States
Products: unlimited
Employees: 33,700 (full-time and part-time)
Revenue: 34.20B
Website: http://www.amazon.com
Key People
Jeff Bezos, Prsident, CEO, Chairman of the Board 
                   Werner Vogels, VP & CTO
                   Mathew Work, VP, Alexa Research
                   Shelley Reynolds, VP Worldwide Controller & Principal Accounting Officer
                   Bill Carr, VP Digital Media
                   Colin Bodell, VP Website Application Platform
                   Jeffrey Wilke, SVP, North American Retail

[edit] Amazon.com Inc. is a global leader in e-Commerce and the largest online retail store in the United States and in 45 other countries worldwide offering a wide range of products from books, electronics, games, home and garden, movies, music, toys and many other products.

Background

Mr. Jeff Bezos, a young hedge fund analyst founded Amazon in 1994 as an online bookstore. At first, he planned to call his company Cadabra but he changed his mind because it sounds like “cadaver.” He finally decided to call the company Amazon.com after one of the world’s largest river Amazon, which represents the gigantic number of books he plans to sell online. Jeff’s parents were the first investors in the company and entrusted him $300,000 from their retirement savings. [1]


Bezoz officially launched the Amazon online bookstore on July 6, 1995 offering one million titles. The first book that was purchased was the "Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought." He used his garage as his working area and warehouse. In 1996, Bezoz move to a new headquarter, a small warehouse and hired 11 people to help him with his operations. He decided to just maintain a small inventory of books in the warehouse and trusted his suppliers to ship every order promptly. The company grew rapidly at the end of 1996. Bezoz decided move to a bigger warehouse at downtown Seattle. During that time, his employees increased from 11 to 151. [2]


In 1997, the company announced the Initial Public Offering (IPO) of stocks and started trading on NASDAQ under “AMZN.” [3] The company initially offered 3 million shares at $18 per share and at the end of the trading it closed at $23.25 per share. Amazon sold $54 million worth of stocks in one day. [4]


Company Expansion

Since its IPO of stocks, Amazon's sales continue to increase and on latter part of 1998, the company is already offering 3.1 million titles. It also acquired the Internet Data Base and opened its music store.


In 1999, the company acquired Alexa Internet, Tool Crib of the North's Online and Catalog Sales Division and it also opened four fulfillment centers. The company also launched the Amazon.com Auction and added the consumer electronics, toys and games, home improvement, software, video games and gift ideas stores and the zShops. Time Magazine also recognized Jeff Bezoz as 1999 "Person of the Year." [5]


In 2000, Amazon has approximately 16 million customers and it became the most popular e-Commerce company in the United States. The increasing number of customers inspired the management to create a new logo to represent the company’s message; it is selling practically everything from A-Z represented by the arrow under the name Amazon. The arrow is also an illustration of a smile from a customer who is happy and satisfied purchasing a product from the company. [6]

During the dot com bubble burst majority of e-Commerce companies went bankrupt but Amazon is one of the few to carry on with the operations of the business and climb the ladder of success and continued to open more stores, achieving the company goal of offering every product available in the market and kept introducing different programs to entice more customers to shop on the website such as the super saver shipping offer, look inside the book, consumer reviews etc.

Amazon also acquired more businesses, expanded its operations internationally, opened more fulfillment centers and created partnerships with different companies and launched more stores, programs and opportunities for consumers as well as small entrepreneurs.


Acquisitions

  1. Internet Movie Data Base (1998)
  2. Alexa Internet (1999)
  3. Tool Crib of the North Online & Catalog Sales Division (1999)
  4. Joyo.com Limited (2004)
  5. Book Surge LLC (2005)
  6. Custom Flix Labs,Inc. (2005)
  7. Shopbop.com (2006)
  8. Fabric.com (2008)
  9. Abe Books (2008)
  10. Zappos.com (2009)
  11. BuyVIP.com (2010)
  12. LOVEFilm International Limited (2011)

International Operations

  1. United Kingdom- Amazon.co.uk
  2. Germany - Amazon.de
  3. France - Amazon.fr
  4. Japan - Amazon.co.jp
  5. Canada - Amazon.ca

Fulfillment and Customer Service Centers

  1. New Castle, Delaware
  2. Fernley, Nevada
  3. Coffeyville, Kansas
  4. Campbellsville, Kentucky
  5. Lexington, Kentucky
  6. Huntington, West Virginia
  7. Kennewick, Washington
  8. Munster, Indiana
  9. Goodyear, Arizona
  10. Marston Gate, UK
  11. Slough, UK
  12. Glenrothes, Scotland
  13. Cork, Ireland
  14. Swansea Bay, Wales
  15. Bad Hersfeld, Germany
  16. Leipzig, Germany
  17. Orleans, France
  18. Saran, France
  19. Montilemar, France
  20. Sapporo, Japan
  21. Ichikawa, Japan

==Partnerships== (still researching)


==Financial Performance== (still researching)


==Other Businesses== (still researching)



References=

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