2. Amazon.Com, Inc.
Web site: http://www.amazon.com
Company Perspectives:
We opened our virtual doors in July 1995 with a mission to use the Internet to offer
products that educate, inform, and inspire. We decided to build an online store that would be
customer-friendly and easy to navigate and would offer the broadest possible selection.
About Amazon
Public Company
Incorporated: 1997
Employees: 7,800
Sales: $3.9 billion (2002)
Stock Exchanges: NASDAQ
Ticker Symbol: AMZN
NAIC: 45411 Electronic Shopping and Mail-Order Houses
Considered a pioneer in online retailing, Amazon.com, Inc. expanded during the late
1990s to offer the “Earth’s Biggest Selection” of books, CDs, videos, DVDs, electronics, toys,
tools, home furnishings and housewares, apparel, and kitchen gadgets.
Through third-party agreements,Amazon.com also sells products from well-known
retailers including Toysrus.com Inc., Target Corporation, Circuit City Stores Inc., the Borders
Group, Waterstones, Expedia Inc., Hotwire, National Leisure Group Inc., and Virgin Wines.
Sometimes criticized for its focus on market share over profits, Amazon.com put investor fears
to rest when it secured its first net profit during the fourth quarter of 2001.
A pioneer in the relatively new business of internet commerce, Amazon.com offers
customers features such as 1-Click ordering, secure credit card payment, and direct shipping.
When Amazon.com (Amazon.com) opened its cyber doors in July 1995 as an Internet
bookseller, it did not even merit a mention in Time magazine. During the next four years,
however, the company became not only a driving force in American business, it emerged as a
shining example of how to turn an Internet start-up into a corporate empire. Because of its
amazing success, Time named Company founder Jeff Bezos its "Person of the Year" for 1999.
3. The Beginnings of Amazon.com
Throughout the 1990s, the popularity of the World Wide Web and the internet swept
across the world, and personal computers in most businesses and households got hooked up in
some form or another to internet providers and web browser software. As use of the internet
became more prevalent in society, companies began looking to the web as a new avenue for
commerce. Selling products over the internet offered a variety of choices and opportunities. One
of the pioneers of business on the internet was Jeff Bezos, founder of
Amazon.com.
The music store opened in June 1998, with over 125,000 music titles available. The new
site, which opened at the same time that Amazon.com had also redesigned it book site, offered
many of the same helpful services available at the company’s book site. The database was
searchable by artist, song title, or label, and customers were able to listen to more than 225,000
sound clips before making their selection.
The fourth quarter of 1998 was the first holiday shopping season in the United States that
had substantial retail sales over the Internet. The Boston Consulting Group estimated that
American consumers spent about $4 billion buying goods and services online during the fourth
quarter of 1998, and nearly $10 billion throughout the year. While that amounted to less than one
percent of all U.S. retail sales, e-commerce sales more than tripled from 1997. The same report
estimated that more than 8 million U.S. households made an online purchase during 1998.
After less than two years of operation, Amazon.com became a public company in May
1997 with an initial public offering of 3,000,000 shares of Common Stock. With the proceeds
from the IPO, Bezos went to work on improving the already productive web site and on bettering
the company’s distribution capabilities.
Another growth area for Amazon.com was the success of its ‘Associate’ program.
Established in July 1996, the program allowed individuals with their own web sites to choose
books of interest and place them on their own sites, then allowed visitors to purchase those
books.
The Associates program really began to take off in mid-1997 when Amazon.com formed
partnerships with Yahoo, Inc. and America Online, Inc. Both companies agreed to give
Amazon.com broad promotional capabilities on two of the most visited sites on the Web. As the
success continued, Amazon also struck deals with many other popular sites, including Netscape,
GeoCities, Excite, and AltaVista.
In 1994, Bezos left his job as vice-president of the Wall Street firm D.E. Shaw, moved to
Seattle, and began to work out a business plan for what would become Amazon.com
(http://Amazon.com). After reading a report that projected annual Web growth at 2,300 percent,
Bezos drew up a list of 20 products that could be sold on the Internet.
4. Principal Competitors
Barnes & Noble Inc.
CDNow Inc.
eBay Inc.
Key Dates:
Year Event
1995: Amazon.com (http://Amazon.com) debuts on the Web.
1996: Number of titles grows to 2.5 million; company has 151 employees.
1997: The Company goes public; Amazon.com becomes the first Internet retailer to
secure one million customers. Amazon.com offers its stock to the public for the
first time.
1998: Amazon.com enters the online music and video business Companies are acquired
in the United Kingdom and Germany.
1999: The firm expands into selling toys, electronics, tools, and hardware; Bezos is
named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year.”
2001: Amazon.com reports its first net profit during the fourth quarter.
2002: Warren Jensen resigns as chief financial officer.
Business Relationship in India and Washington
Amazon announced a massive top-up for its India investment, mounting pressure on
homegrown rivals Flipkart and Snapdeal and putting on notice China's Alibaba which looks
poised to be a major rival in one of the world's most lucrative retail battlegrounds.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos made the big announcement of a further $3-billion (Rs
20,000 crore) investment in the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for whom
canvassing foreign investment from American companies has been an important agenda. For
Bezos, having Modi in the audience in Washington DC while promising more money for his
Indian operations is a clever move that could help him score points at the highest level of
government as Amazon lobbies for easier foreign investment regulations in online retail.
5. Board of directors
As of February 2016, the board of directors is:
Jeff Bezos, President, CEO and Chairman
Tom Alberg, Managing partner, Madrona Venture Group
John Seely Brown, Visiting Scholar and Advisor to the Provost at USC
Bing Gordon, partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Jamie Gorelick, partner, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr
Judy McGrath, former CEO, MTV Networks
Alain Monié, CEO, Ingram Micro
Jon Rubinstein, former Chairman and CEO, Palm, Inc.
Thomas O. Ryder, former Chairman and CEO, Reader's Digest Association
Patty Stonesifer, President and CEO, Martha's Table
Wendell P. Weeks, Chairman, President, and CEO, Corning Inc.
Roles and Skills of Amazon's Purchasing Managers
As mentioned in the preceding paragraph, Amazon is currently (as of this writing)
offering hundreds of jobs within dozens of its specialized purchasing departments. This infers
that Amazon’s purchasing falls under a bigger umbrella than most other businesses. If this is the
case, a Director of Purchasing and Supply Chain Management must encompass these different,
smaller management groups
6. Global Infrastructure
The AWS (Amazon Web Services) Cloud operates 35 Availability Zones within 13
geographic Regions around the world, with 9 more Availability Zones and 4 more
Regions coming online throughout the next year.
7. Amazon Office
Amazon U.S.A Main Office 1200 12th Avenue, Suite 1200
Seattle, Washington 98114
U.S.A.
Amazon India Registered Office Brigade Gateway, 8th floor, 26/1, Dr.
Rajkumar Road, Malleshwaram(W),
Bangalore-560055, Karnataka, India
Email ID – amznindpr@amazon.com (Public
Relation Queries)
Amazon Development Center India Pvt. Ltd.,
Amazon India Pvt.ltd
Corporate Office
Perungudi SP Info Kandanchavdi, Main Street, MGR
Nagar, Perungudi
044 4518 0000
Chennai Habibullah Road, Gangai Karai Puram, T
Nagar, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600017
Bangalore Brigade Gateway, 8th Floor, 26/1, Dr.
Rajkumar Road, Malleshwaram West,
Bengaluru, Karnataka 560055
Amazon Development Center
Software Company
Bangalore 2nd Floor, Safina Towers, 3, Ali Asker Road,
Vasanth Nagar, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560052
Hyderabad Divyasree Trinity Building, Plot No. 6, Hi-
Tech City Layout, Survey Number 64,
Madhapur Village, Serilingampally, Ranga
Reddy District, Hyderabad, Telangana 500081
Hyderabad 1 ISB Rd, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, Telangana
500032
Amazon Transport Services
Tamil Nadu Sungam Bypass Rd, Shanmuga Nagar,
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 641005
Amazon India
Warehouse
Maharashtra Bhiwandi, Maharashtra
8. Courier Services
Courier Service Tracking/Contact Information
Amazon
Transportation
Services
Contact Amazon
Blue Dart Contact Blue Dart
FedEx Toll-free number: 1800 209 6161 / 1800 22 6161
Gati Toll-free number: 1860 123 4284 / email: customerservice@gati.com
Indian Postal
Service
Contact India Post: www.indiapost.gov.in/ArticleTracking.aspx
Aramex Contact Aramex
Ecom Express Contact Ecom Express / Contact Number: 011-30212000
Delhivery Contact Delhivery: www.delhivery.com/contact.html / Contact
number: 0091 (124) 6719500 / email:
customer.support@delhivery.com
10. Websites :
Region Sovereignty Domain name
Asia
China amazon.cn
India amazon.in
Japan amazon.co.jp
Europe
France amazon.fr
Germany amazon.de
Italy amazon.it
Netherlands amazon.nl
Spain amazon.es
United Kingdom amazon.co.uk
North America
Canada amazon.ca
Mexico amazon.com.mx
United States amazon.com
Oceania Australia amazon.com.au
South America Brazil amazon.com.br
11. Amazon.com,inc
People
Current Jeff Bezos ,Tony Hsieh, Christopher North, Werner Vogels, and Gregg Zehr.
Former
Rick Dalzell, Brian McBride, David Risher, Ram Shriram, Tom Szkutak, Brian
Valentine.
Facilities Amazon Tower I, Amazon Tower II.
Products
and
services
Websites
A9.com, AbeBoo,ksAlexa InternetAmapedia, Askville, CDNOW China, The
B,ook DepositoryDash, Diapers.com, Digital Photography Review,
Endless.com, Fresh, Goodreads, Internet Movie Database, Box Office Mojo,
Withoutabox, Junglee.com, Local, Marketplace, Payments, PlanetAll,
Shelfari, Twitch.tv, Wireless, Woot.com, Zappos.
Web services
AMI, CloudFront, DynamoDB, EBS, EC2, MTurk, Product Advertising API,
RDS, S3, SES, SimpleDB, SQS, VPC, Silk, Glacier, Storywriter.
Digital
Appstore, Audible Inc., ComiXology, Cloud Drive, Echo, Video, Prime,
Kindle, Kindle Fire, Fire HD, Fire HDX, Fire TV.
Fire Phone, Kindle Store, Lexcycle, LoveFilm, Mobipocket, Music, Reflexive
EntertainmentFire OS, Amazon Digital Game Store.
Technology
1-Click, Carbonado, Dynamo, Gurupa, Lab126, Double Helix Games, Obidos,
Liquavista.
Publishing
Amazon Publishing, Amazon Studios, Breakthrough Novel Award, Best
Books of the Year, Kindle Direct Publishing.
Investments 43 Things, Amie Street (Songza), LibraryThing, LivingSocial, Sellaband.
Other
Amazon Books, Amazon Light, ASIN, Controversies (tax), Fishbowl, Locker, Perfect 10,
Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc.,
Statistically improbable phrase, Vine.