30 Years Later, Amazon Now Dominates eCommerce
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On July 5,1994, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon as a bookselling business in his garage. Three decades later, Amazon is one the largest companies globally. The company’s value currently stands at $2.08 trillion.
Let’s look at the company’s trajectory, from the beginning to its current position in the global markets.
Who was Bezos prior to founding Amazon?
In 1994, Bezos was a Wall Street investment banker who wanted to be part of the dot.com boom. He was focused and intense, despite being a frugal individual who drove a Honda and wore khakis. His objective was to build a store that carried everything.
Before he settled on Amazon as a name, the company’s initial name was relentless.com. Typing in this site name still directs you to Amazon.com.
From selling books to selling everything, how did that come about?
As we all know, Amazon only sold books when it was first launched. The idea behind this was books didn’t spoil, they were easy to ship, relatively cheap, and came in different genres and titles, which meant they were plentiful.
Over the years, the company expanded, buying other companies in the robotics, software and grocery spaces. In addition to getting an advantage over sales tax for almost 20 years, all funds generated were injected back into the company.
While this may be an issue for some investors, those in Amazon had no issue with the unprofitable years they endured in the beginning. Their investments began paying off when, after some years, the company began rolling out products such as the Kindle eBook reader and opened its marketplace to small businesses.
Furthermore, Amazon centered on perfecting two-day shipping before moving on to same-day shipping. After this, it began charging consumers a membership fee to access its services. Currently, there are 230 million Amazon Prime subscribers globally.
The company is also the second-largest private employer in America; Walmart is the first. More than 1.5 million individuals help this company run on a day-to-day basis.
So, what now?
Despite recording growth during the coronavirus pandemic, Amazon is now focused on reducing its warehousing footprint. The company is also struggling to catch up with other tech giants in the artificial intelligence race. This comes as it deals with a federal antimonopoly suit in which plaintiffs claim that the company suffocates its rivals by increasing costs for both consumers and sellers over time.
Now, Amazon is focused on staying ahead of the competition while dealing with issues like increasing prices, fake products, and fake reviews.
These issues that Amazon is now grappling with give new players in the e-commerce space such as NextPlat Corp. (NASDAQ: NXPL) (NASDAQ: NXPLW) an opportunity to learn from this giant’s path and take steps to avert similar problems from arising for them in due time.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to NextPlat Corp. (NASDAQ: NXPL, NXPLW) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/NXPL
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