Amazon's history: from the garage to flying warehouses in 20 years
Four million deliveries a day and 350 million models of gadgets, clothes, household chemicals and everything that you can imagine. This is Amazon - the largest marketplace in the world.
Since 2014, the cost of Amazon has almost doubled: from $ 180 billion to $ 350 billion, and the company's founder, Jeff Bezos, has become one of the richest people on the planet. His fortune is close to $ 70 billion, he is two times richer than Zuckerberg and comes close to Bill Gates, who has $ 76 billion. 22 years ago, when Microsoft was at its peak, no one suspected about Amazon. The company did not even have a name, and Bezos himself was sitting alone on a table made of an old door, and hoped that someone would buy books from him. Banderolka tells the story of the success of this clerk from Wall Street, who decided one day decided to go to the provincial Seattle and go to work in his own garage âž”
')
They say to be truly free, you have to be a little crazy. The example of Jeff Bezos proves this statement. He worked on Wall Street and even became a vice president at a successful New York hedge fund. He had his own house and several hundred thousand dollars in the account. The guy was married to a slim tall brunette. He was appreciated by his superiors and his competitors were called to him. However, this was not enough for Jeff Bezos.
In the service, Bezos was responsible for Internet business - a new trend in the early 90s, which had just begun to develop in the United States. He saw companies emerging from nowhere and gaining tens of thousands of customers. Jeff discussed this phenomenon with his boss, and both came to the conclusion that one day there will be an online store selling absolutely EVERYTHING and delivering any goods directly to the buyer's home. The more Bezos thought about it, the more he liked this idea.
Jeff quit, moved with his wife to Seattle and began to develop the concept of his site. When asked in an interview how he decided to take such a crazy step, Bezos replies: "I knew that I would regret it if I did not try."
Amazon house
Jeff Bezos had the idea to create a store selling any product. Quite ordinary obstacles stood in the way of its realization: limited budget, poor understanding of the market and lack of third-party investments. In order not to go bankrupt in the first week, Bezos decided to start with a simple one. He identified 20 categories of products that, in his opinion, could sell well over the Internet. There were computer software, movies, music, office supplies ...
But best of all, the first product looked like books - easy and convenient for delivery. It’s all the same who buy them from, and the choice on the Internet will obviously be more than in a simple bookstore.
In 1994, Jeff Bezos registered the company Kadabra in Seattle (the name apparently originated from the magical “abracadabra”) and was going to sell books. But it did not matter: at the hearing the name was too reminiscent of the word cadaver (“dead body”). The second option was Relentless (“ruthless”), but the friends of the businessman thought the name sounded too ominous. The address of Relentless.com is still registered on Bezos, and if you enter it in the browser, you will be transferred to Amazon.com.
In search of fresh ideas, Jeff flipped through the Oxford dictionary and came across the word “Amazon”. Yeah, the biggest river in the world (the Bezos store was supposed to be the biggest in the world), starts at “A” (there wasn’t Google yet, and users found new sites through online directories) - it all came together in one picture! Amazon.com was registered in November 1994 and appeared online in 1995.
Bezos himself says: “There is nothing special in our business idea or our structure. All this can be copied. But, you know, McDonalds also copied, and it did not hurt the company, it is still the leader. A lot here depends on the name. He must be trusted. Online is even more important than in the real world. The name is the first thing users see about you. ”
The first book on the site, a programming tutorial, was sold on April 3, 1995. Amazon then had a huge database with millions of book titles — plain black text on a white background. Jeff himself did not have any books: having received the application, he sent it to the offline store, with which he collaborated, and then received from them the goods. There were only two thousand books in the Amazon warehouse in Seattle — only what needed to be sent to the recipients soon.
Later, when the flow of orders began to grow, employees (Jeff hired five people at once) had to process applications on the computer during the day, and go to the warehouse in the evening to receive the goods and pack them in company boxes. Even then, Bezos had the reputation of a stern employer.
Amazon's small team has a New Year corporate event.
Amazon’s rapid growth began when the store was featured on the main page of the popular search engine Yahoo! For two months, sales rose to $ 20,000 a week, and Jeff constantly had to personally hire new employees to accept and process orders. The first investors, who gave $ 1 million for server upgrades and site upgrades, were brought up. This allowed Amazon to bring a decent look, and even pictures of goods appeared on the resource. It became clear that the project took place.
Amazon.com First Version
Amazon had an interesting business plan at the time: the company invested all its profits in development. “Either we are the first, or we lost”, - this concept was later used by Google, and behind it, by Facebook. But in the nineties, this approach was a novelty, and investors were very worried that the company did not make money for five years. But when, in March of 2000, the dot-com bubble burst, dragging hundreds of Internet companies to the bottom, Amazon was one of those who survived. The value of the company's shares fell from $ 107 to $ 7 (now one share costs more than $ 800), but the company still had a safety cushion, which even allowed to spend money on mergers and acquisitions. During the crisis, the online store managed to buy competitors mired in debt, and become even bigger.
At the beginning of his journey, Jeff Bezos set two guidelines for himself:
In reality, in 2000, Amazon's sales exceeded $ 1.6 billion. The seller became one of the largest players in the online business. If in 1997 the firm at IPO was valued at $ 438 million, now it was worth almost five times more expensive. And in 2001, the first profit appeared - $ 5 million in the last quarter - due to high sales during the holiday season, Black Friday and Christmas.
Amazon Robotic Warehouse
By that time, the company was selling not only books, but also music from DVDs. First, the sale of only printed products narrowed the audience. Secondly, Amazon had litigation with popular book chains because of Bezos’s claims that it “is the largest bookstore in the world.” Nobody argued that Amazon sells more print products than everyone else, but lawyers decided to complain about the word “store” and insisted that Amazon was a broker who was engaged in resale, not selling. Bezos had to pay a pretty penny to the shops, and the issue was resolved outside the court.
In 1998-2000 On the site opened section of toys and electronics. In 2003, the company had its own IT center, and then Amazon.Prime service for the most active clients and a jewelry line with Paris Hilton. Amazon took over the online streaming service Twitch, IMDB (American Kinopoisk), bought for $ 300 million a popular seller of audio books Audible, and released its first gadget - the Kindle reader. In 2009, Amazon acquired one of the largest online shoe and apparel stores Zappos.com for $ 1.2 billion. And personally, Jeff Bezos now owns America's largest newspaper, The Washington Post.
Amazon is still growing. The guys are constantly buying new companies and offering convenient services. Most recently, they have successfully launched delivery using drones, and also opened an offline store Amazon Go. This is a unique place where you do not have to pay for purchases: the system automatically calculates how much is what you are carrying, and removes this amount from your account at Amazon. It is expected that such stores will begin to appear everywhere in US cities in 2017.
Already, the company has become a huge part of the global economy. Every third online purchase in America is made on amazon.com. Every second customer of online stores first goes to Amazon and examines the prices of goods there, to roughly represent what he is dealing with.
The company has 304 million active customers who make 120 million monthly purchases.
The online retail market is expanding by 15% over the year, and Amazon is growing along with it. And Jeff Bezos is still at the helm, making all the key decisions. He devotes his free time to investing in projects dedicated to the invention of drugs for diseases considered incurable.
First delivery using drones (end of 2016).
Amazon, of course, will continue to grow - and the Chinese brothers are unlikely to interfere. The seller is already offline, trying to reduce costs with the help of new technologies and sooner or later will come to countries that are not yet familiar with the service. Of the large ones, of course, India and Russia. Local stores can bring goods from abroad, do a wig of 20-50% - and people are happy to take it, not knowing that you can save on every purchase.
The world has not yet come up with a better place for shopping high-quality things - top-end gadgets and electronics, toys, cosmetics, clothes and shoes. Amazon will always appreciate low prices and the lack of fakes, fast delivery and a lot of discounts every day. A parcel makes Amazon available to everyone! Join thousands of people who know what profitable shopping on Amazon with the Banderolka is , especially since in February there is a great chance to get a discount on delivery !
About how to buy on Amazon , we tell here and here .
Since 2014, the cost of Amazon has almost doubled: from $ 180 billion to $ 350 billion, and the company's founder, Jeff Bezos, has become one of the richest people on the planet. His fortune is close to $ 70 billion, he is two times richer than Zuckerberg and comes close to Bill Gates, who has $ 76 billion. 22 years ago, when Microsoft was at its peak, no one suspected about Amazon. The company did not even have a name, and Bezos himself was sitting alone on a table made of an old door, and hoped that someone would buy books from him. Banderolka tells the story of the success of this clerk from Wall Street, who decided one day decided to go to the provincial Seattle and go to work in his own garage âž”
')
"So as not to regret"
They say to be truly free, you have to be a little crazy. The example of Jeff Bezos proves this statement. He worked on Wall Street and even became a vice president at a successful New York hedge fund. He had his own house and several hundred thousand dollars in the account. The guy was married to a slim tall brunette. He was appreciated by his superiors and his competitors were called to him. However, this was not enough for Jeff Bezos.
In the service, Bezos was responsible for Internet business - a new trend in the early 90s, which had just begun to develop in the United States. He saw companies emerging from nowhere and gaining tens of thousands of customers. Jeff discussed this phenomenon with his boss, and both came to the conclusion that one day there will be an online store selling absolutely EVERYTHING and delivering any goods directly to the buyer's home. The more Bezos thought about it, the more he liked this idea.
"If not me, someone else will do it,"- Thought one day, Jeff Bezos and knocked out of the boring work.
Jeff quit, moved with his wife to Seattle and began to develop the concept of his site. When asked in an interview how he decided to take such a crazy step, Bezos replies: "I knew that I would regret it if I did not try."
Epic named
Amazon house
Jeff Bezos had the idea to create a store selling any product. Quite ordinary obstacles stood in the way of its realization: limited budget, poor understanding of the market and lack of third-party investments. In order not to go bankrupt in the first week, Bezos decided to start with a simple one. He identified 20 categories of products that, in his opinion, could sell well over the Internet. There were computer software, movies, music, office supplies ...
But best of all, the first product looked like books - easy and convenient for delivery. It’s all the same who buy them from, and the choice on the Internet will obviously be more than in a simple bookstore.
In 1994, Jeff Bezos registered the company Kadabra in Seattle (the name apparently originated from the magical “abracadabra”) and was going to sell books. But it did not matter: at the hearing the name was too reminiscent of the word cadaver (“dead body”). The second option was Relentless (“ruthless”), but the friends of the businessman thought the name sounded too ominous. The address of Relentless.com is still registered on Bezos, and if you enter it in the browser, you will be transferred to Amazon.com.
In search of fresh ideas, Jeff flipped through the Oxford dictionary and came across the word “Amazon”. Yeah, the biggest river in the world (the Bezos store was supposed to be the biggest in the world), starts at “A” (there wasn’t Google yet, and users found new sites through online directories) - it all came together in one picture! Amazon.com was registered in November 1994 and appeared online in 1995.
Bezos himself says: “There is nothing special in our business idea or our structure. All this can be copied. But, you know, McDonalds also copied, and it did not hurt the company, it is still the leader. A lot here depends on the name. He must be trusted. Online is even more important than in the real world. The name is the first thing users see about you. ”
First step
The first book on the site, a programming tutorial, was sold on April 3, 1995. Amazon then had a huge database with millions of book titles — plain black text on a white background. Jeff himself did not have any books: having received the application, he sent it to the offline store, with which he collaborated, and then received from them the goods. There were only two thousand books in the Amazon warehouse in Seattle — only what needed to be sent to the recipients soon.
Later, when the flow of orders began to grow, employees (Jeff hired five people at once) had to process applications on the computer during the day, and go to the warehouse in the evening to receive the goods and pack them in company boxes. Even then, Bezos had the reputation of a stern employer.
Amazon's small team has a New Year corporate event.
Amazon’s rapid growth began when the store was featured on the main page of the popular search engine Yahoo! For two months, sales rose to $ 20,000 a week, and Jeff constantly had to personally hire new employees to accept and process orders. The first investors, who gave $ 1 million for server upgrades and site upgrades, were brought up. This allowed Amazon to bring a decent look, and even pictures of goods appeared on the resource. It became clear that the project took place.
Amazon.com First VersionGrowth phase
Amazon had an interesting business plan at the time: the company invested all its profits in development. “Either we are the first, or we lost”, - this concept was later used by Google, and behind it, by Facebook. But in the nineties, this approach was a novelty, and investors were very worried that the company did not make money for five years. But when, in March of 2000, the dot-com bubble burst, dragging hundreds of Internet companies to the bottom, Amazon was one of those who survived. The value of the company's shares fell from $ 107 to $ 7 (now one share costs more than $ 800), but the company still had a safety cushion, which even allowed to spend money on mergers and acquisitions. During the crisis, the online store managed to buy competitors mired in debt, and become even bigger.
At the beginning of his journey, Jeff Bezos set two guidelines for himself:
- if by 2000 his company will sell goods at $ 74 million a year, this will be a normal working result;
- if by 2000 his company starts selling $ 144 million, it will be a success.
In reality, in 2000, Amazon's sales exceeded $ 1.6 billion. The seller became one of the largest players in the online business. If in 1997 the firm at IPO was valued at $ 438 million, now it was worth almost five times more expensive. And in 2001, the first profit appeared - $ 5 million in the last quarter - due to high sales during the holiday season, Black Friday and Christmas.
Amazon Robotic Warehouse
By that time, the company was selling not only books, but also music from DVDs. First, the sale of only printed products narrowed the audience. Secondly, Amazon had litigation with popular book chains because of Bezos’s claims that it “is the largest bookstore in the world.” Nobody argued that Amazon sells more print products than everyone else, but lawyers decided to complain about the word “store” and insisted that Amazon was a broker who was engaged in resale, not selling. Bezos had to pay a pretty penny to the shops, and the issue was resolved outside the court.
In 1998-2000 On the site opened section of toys and electronics. In 2003, the company had its own IT center, and then Amazon.Prime service for the most active clients and a jewelry line with Paris Hilton. Amazon took over the online streaming service Twitch, IMDB (American Kinopoisk), bought for $ 300 million a popular seller of audio books Audible, and released its first gadget - the Kindle reader. In 2009, Amazon acquired one of the largest online shoe and apparel stores Zappos.com for $ 1.2 billion. And personally, Jeff Bezos now owns America's largest newspaper, The Washington Post.
Amazon is still growing. The guys are constantly buying new companies and offering convenient services. Most recently, they have successfully launched delivery using drones, and also opened an offline store Amazon Go. This is a unique place where you do not have to pay for purchases: the system automatically calculates how much is what you are carrying, and removes this amount from your account at Amazon. It is expected that such stores will begin to appear everywhere in US cities in 2017.
Already, the company has become a huge part of the global economy. Every third online purchase in America is made on amazon.com. Every second customer of online stores first goes to Amazon and examines the prices of goods there, to roughly represent what he is dealing with.
- The company employs 270 thousand people, 4 times more than Google.
- Amazon.com is the 7th most popular website on the Internet.
- Amazon's annual turnover is $ 107 billion (more than Google and Microsoft).
The company has 304 million active customers who make 120 million monthly purchases.
The online retail market is expanding by 15% over the year, and Amazon is growing along with it. And Jeff Bezos is still at the helm, making all the key decisions. He devotes his free time to investing in projects dedicated to the invention of drugs for diseases considered incurable.
First delivery using drones (end of 2016).
Amazon, of course, will continue to grow - and the Chinese brothers are unlikely to interfere. The seller is already offline, trying to reduce costs with the help of new technologies and sooner or later will come to countries that are not yet familiar with the service. Of the large ones, of course, India and Russia. Local stores can bring goods from abroad, do a wig of 20-50% - and people are happy to take it, not knowing that you can save on every purchase.
The world has not yet come up with a better place for shopping high-quality things - top-end gadgets and electronics, toys, cosmetics, clothes and shoes. Amazon will always appreciate low prices and the lack of fakes, fast delivery and a lot of discounts every day. A parcel makes Amazon available to everyone! Join thousands of people who know what profitable shopping on Amazon with the Banderolka is , especially since in February there is a great chance to get a discount on delivery !
About how to buy on Amazon , we tell here and here .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/370157/
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