AMAZON.COM
1. THE STORY BEHIND AMAZON.COM
- In 1994 Jeffrey Bezos saw the internet usage was growing at 2300% per year.
- Bezos left his job and drew up a list of 20 products that could be sold on the net and narrowed the list down to either music or books, but decided on books
- He moved to Seattle because it was close to Roseburg Oregon which is were one of the biggest book warehouses is located.
- Bought a 400 sq.ft. office in Bellevue and launched Amazon.com in July 1995
- Six weeks later Amazon moved to a 2000 sq.ft. warehouse and six months later moved to a 17,000 sq.ft warehouse.
- Bezos attracted 8 million from venture capitalists Kleiner,Perkins,Caufield and Byers
- At the end of 1996 Amazon.com's revenue was 15.6 million and they were one of the most successful web retailers.
- In May 17,1997 Bezos went public with Amazon
- In Oct'97 Bezos opened a 2nd 20,000 sqft.
Center in Delaware.
- Revenues increased to 147 million in 1997, 1998 the revenue is expected to hit 550million
- 22% of the sales of the company are outside the US
- In June 1998 Amazon expanded its product line to include music and offers 10 times the selection of the typical music store
- The company is customer focused versus competition focused
- In April 1998 Amazon acquired three companies Bookpages, Telebook, and Internet Movie Database to aid in their expansion of the European e-commerce
- In July 1998 Amazon signed agreements to acquire Junglee Corp and Planetall.
Amazon.com since the case article was written:
- Amazon.com is moving from what started as the Earth's biggest bookstore is r rapidly becoming the biggest anything store that offers millions of books,CD's,DVD's and videos to account for 70%...