Amazon (Company)

Amazon.com, online retailer, manufacturer of electronic book readers, and Web services provider that became the iconic example of electronic commerce. Its headquarters are in Seattle, Washington. Amazon.com is a vast Internet-based enterprise that sells books, music, movies, housewares, electronics, toys, and many other goods, either directly or as the middleman between other retailers and Amazon.com’s millions of customers. Its Web services business includes renting data storage and computing resources, so-called “cloud computing,” over the Internet. Its considerable online presence is such that, in 2012, 1 percent of all Internet traffic in North America traveled in and out of Amazon.com data centres. The company also makes the market-leading Kindle e-book readers. Its promotion of these devices has led to dramatic growth in e-book publishing and turned Amazon.com into a major disruptive force in the book-publishing market.

Amazon is known for its disruption of well-established industries through technological innovation and mass scale. It is the world's largest online marketplace, AI assistant provider, live-streaming platform and cloud computing platform as measured by revenue and market capitalization. Amazon is the largest Internet Company by revenue in the world. It is the second largest private employer in the United States and one of the world's most valuable companies. As of 2020, Amazon has the highest global brand valuation.

In 1994 Jeff Bezos, a former Wall Street hedge fund executive incorporated Amazon.com, choosing the name primarily because it began with the first letter of the alphabet and because of its association with the vast South American river. On the basis of research he had conducted, Bezos concluded that books would be the most logical product initially to sell online. Amazon.com was not the first company to do so; Computer Literacy, a Silicon Valley bookstore, began selling books from its inventory to its technically astute customers in 1991. However, the promise of Amazon.com was to deliver any book to any reader anywhere. However, Bezos dismissed naysayers as not understanding the massive growth potential of the Internet. He argued that to succeed as an online retailer, a company needed to “Get Big Fast,” a slogan he had printed on employee T-shirts. In fact, Amazon.com did grow fast, reaching 180,000 customer accounts by December 1996, after its first full year in operation, and less than a year later, in October 1997, it had 1,000,000 customer accounts. Its revenues jumped from $15.7 million in 1996 to $148 million in 1997, followed by $610 million in 1998. Amazon.com’s success propelled its founder to become Time magazine’s 1999 Person of the Year.

To sustain that growth, Amazon.com needed more than private investors to underwrite the expansion. As a result, in May 1997, less than two years after opening its virtual doors to consumers and without ever having made a profit, Amazon.com became a public company, raising $54 million on the NASDAQ market. In addition to the cash, the company was able to use its high-flying stock to fund its aggressive growth and acquisition strategy. Although offering more types of goods broadened its appeal, it was Amazon.com’s service that gained it customer loyalty and ultimate profitability. Its personalization tools recommended other products to buy on the basis of both a customer’s purchasing history and data from buyers of the same items. Its publishing of customer reviews of products fostered a “community of consumers” who helped each other find everything from the right book to the best blender.

Aside from Amazon, Bezos founded a spaceflight company, Blue Origin, in 2000. Blue Origin bought a launch site in Texas soon thereafter and planned to introduce a crewed suborbital spacecraft, New Shepard, in 2018 and an orbital launch vehicle, New Glenn, in 2020. Bezos bought The Washington Post and affiliated publications for $250 million in 2013. Bezos’s net worth was calculated in 2018 at $112 billion, making him the richest person in the world.

IMDb, in full Internet Movie Database, Web site that provides information about millions of films and television programs as well as their cast and crew. The name is an acronym for Internet Movie Database. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, IMDb is based in Seattle, but the office of Col Needham, the founder and CEO, remains in Bristol, England, where the Web site was founded.

The IMDb site grew beyond its original purpose of indexing credits in film and TV productions. An entry for a film may now cover studios and other companies associated with the film, release dates in various countries, censor classifications, box-office grosses, awards won, and other information. The entries for performers, directors, writers, and others involved in film and TV productions are also comprehensive. Some entries include photos, videos, and coming-attraction trailers.

Whole Foods Market, the largest American chain of supermarkets that specializes in natural and organic foods. It operates stores in the United States and also in Canada and the United Kingdom. Corporate headquarters are in Austin, Texas. In 2017 Whole Foods was acquired by Amazon.com. The first Whole Foods store opened its doors in Austin in September 1980, after John Mackey and Renee Lawson Hardy, owners of the SaferWay health food store, joined forces with Craig Weller and Mark Skiles, owners of Clarksville Natural Grocery. Somewhat larger than a typical health food store, it offered a wider selection of food. A flash flood tore through the uninsured building only a few months after the opening, but—with help from an already loyal core group of customers—the damage was quickly repaired.

In May 2017 Whole Foods overhauled its board as the company faced continued declining sales. Shortly thereafter it was announced that Amazon.com was buying Whole Foods. The deal, which was valued at more than $13 billion, closed in August.