From a book to a big refrigerator, you can get anything while sitting in your house with one click. The only step is to visit the website of Amazon and order it. Isn’t it amazing? It certainly is, but all the credit goes to the company known as Amazon Inc., which laid the foundation of what we call e-commerce today. The disruption it has caused in the traditional method of shopping is worth mentioning.
The story of Amazon from a bookseller to a company that sells almost everything includes many challenges and hardships. It has become one of the most valued technology companies globally with its innovation, valuable products, and sheer customer loyalty.
Amazon - Beginning Story
Jeff Bezos, the man behind the success story of Amazon, studied at Princeton University. He ended up getting a major in Electrical and Computer Science Engineering, but entrepreneurship was in his blood.
After working as a programmer at Wall Street, he decided to set up an online book store. In 1995 with two other people in a garage, the website Amazon.com went online that had a niche in selling books online.
In the initial days, it was extremely cumbersome, but perseverance is the key that unlocks success. So, in the late 1990s, Amazon started selling products from DVDs, CDs to groceries. The decisive factor was that Amazon began building customer loyalty.
Customer retention is something that differentiates excellent businesses from mediocre counterparts. It happened because of the consistent innovation and up-gradation of products and services.
Well, as of now, Amazon sells more than 30 categories of products.
Unfolding Success Story of Amazon
One of the factors behind the success story of Amazon has been its ability to leverage the opportunities the changing landscape of business gives. When America saw the boom of the internet in the 1990s, Amazon pounced upon the avenue and scaled it efficiently.
So, when the dot-com bubble burst, it was one of the few surviving firms. After that lesson, Amazon thought of out of the box ideas and underwent stellar innovation in its products and services.
Story of Amazon Kindle
A prime example of Amazon’s innovation is that when the popularity of e-books started escalating in America, Amazon launched a product known as Kindle. With the advancements in technology, e-books on Kindle were grabbing more readers than soft copies.
Story of Amazon Prime
At the start of the 21st century, the American market started opening up. It was majorly due to market forces supporting “free play”. To leverage the vista, a new feather into the story of Amazon was added, i.e. Amazon Prime.
Amazon Prime was initially launched as a quick shipping tool for selected goods and services. But soon, with the growing penetration of content consuming world, it started offering TV shows and Movies. It has become one of the biggest OTT platforms with more than 100 million members throughout the globe.
Story of Amazon Alexa
With Artificial Intelligence changing the world, Amazon created a new AI-powered smart device known as Alexa, and it has proved to be a revolutionary product of our times.
Success Story of Amazon - Factors
A company’s sustainable growth involves many innovative factors and decisions that prove fruitful for the company. There are a lot of these factors behind the making of Amazon an international brand.
- Innovation: Amazon took the right decisions on perfect business opportunities like launching Kindle or Amazon prime. Moreover, it has spent a lot of bucks on innovative marketing campaigns to do branding.
To solve the verbal communication problems, they created Alexa. Amazon has worked a lot on their UX design to improve the app experience for the customers. - Venturing into new industries: Amazon took baby steps to become a multibillion-dollar conglomerate. As a bookseller, they have created a market position in different sectors, like online retail, online streaming, payments, film ratings etc.
So, by entering new industries, Amazon has generated more revenue sources, and interestingly, it has disrupted by deploying new-age technology into them. - Risk-Taking abilities: Risk-taking abilities are a prerequisite for a successful entrepreneur. Jeff Bezos has demonstrated this quality from the start as he took a lot of risky bets in the uncertain business environment.
There was fierce competition from world-class tech companies like Google and Apple, but still, he launched Alexa and made it a market fit product. - Customer-centric approach: The story of Amazon has unravelled the fact that Customer retention is of utmost necessity behind a company’s success. Amazon has always zeroed in on customer satisfaction.
From providing discounts, coupons to EMI and free delivery of products, Amazon has always directed their efforts towards giving its customers variety in products and services.
Amazon as a Multibillion Conglomerate
Amazon is the largest bookseller in the US, accounting for 89 per cent and 42 per cent market share in the sale of soft copies and physical books, respectively.
Amazon today employs more than 5 lakh people and expanded to more than 100 countries. The story of Amazon has been nothing short of inspiration to many entrepreneurs.
Despite having cut-throat competition from Netflix in the online streaming industry, Amazon has more than 20 per cent market share. All these revenue streams have made Amazon touch the revenue number of $500 billion.
Amazon has been a wise investment for the investors as it has provided them with a rewarding total return of more than 1200 per cent in the last ten years.
ConclusionThe story of Amazon from a bookseller to an almost trillion-dollar company will inspire the coming generation. It depicts that satisfying the customers is the most straightforward approach for a company’s progress by leaps and bounds.
Amazon has proven that Innovation and Risk-taking give desirable results. Moreover, with the growing adoption of technology, the business environment provides a lot of breathtaking opportunities.
Executing the right action when opportunities arise has made Amazon a trillion-dollar tech company.
