Amazon’s Transformation
Amazon, the online giant company, was initially known as a popular seller of second-hand books. The company is, however, going beyond that niche and launching into different sectors globally. According to sources, Amazon is fast on the track to becoming the first trillion dollar company in the world. The founder, Jeff Bezos, still allegedly has bigger dreams of changing the face of the global retail market.
Jef Bezos’ Big dreams
According to sources, Bezos’ ambition didn’t just emerge. Some years back, his high-school girlfriend told a media outlet that she had always known that Bezos would make lots of money. According to her, it was less about the money for him and more about his plans for the money which had to do with bringing a change to the future as he had always wanted to explore the outer space.
Bezos was raised mostly in Florida and Texas by his mom, Jackie, and Mike Bezos, his stepfather. In a biography written by Brad stone, Bezos showed signs of early interests in science and engineering when he dismantled his crib at the tender age of three.
He studied computer science and engineering at Princeton University, and he later worked at different New York-based financial companies with the skills he acquired. When Bezos was 30 years, he quit his job having stumbled upon a statistic that hinted at the Internet’s rapid growth.
When he delivered a speech in 2010 at Princeton, he noted that his decision to start Amazon was a path which was less safe at that time. According to him, he decided to give Amazon a shot, and he noted that he would have been haunted by the idea of not trying.
Among Bezos’ other ventures is his ownership of the Washington Post newspaper, and an aerospace firm called Blue Origin. He also has other philanthropic plans which he would reportedly make known soon. Reports have it that the firm is also planning to make tickets available for space travel in 2019.
Bezos: Cybercommerce King
His Amazon dream which he funded with over $100,000 of his funds and support from family money was quick to pay off. Amazon was officially launched in 1995, and within one month, it had succeeded in fulfilling shipping orders to 50 states in the US and about 45 countries.
According to sources, in its first five years, Amazon’s customers’ accounts rose to 17 million from 180,000. On its sales level, it rose to $1.6billion from $511,000, and so many top investors expressed interest in the company. In 1997, Amazon went public, and it raised $54million. That made Bezos become one of the wealthiest men in the world before his 35th birthday and Time Magazine in 1999 named him the cybercommerce king.
Mr. Bezos has reportedly directed the affairs of Amazon using a long-term strategy and placing a strong focus on its customers. That strategy made the company forego its yearly profit for ten years as it slashed prices, made free shipping available and used several years to develop new devices such as its Kindle e-reader.
As much as it cut prices, the company had also saved costs in areas where it could. For instance, employees at its headquarters were made to pay for parking space; it opposed efforts to set up labor unions and tried to avoid tax as much as possible. Amazon has also experienced its fair share of failures.
In the second quarter of this year, Amazon reported almost $53bn in sales and a $2.5bn in quarterly profit. In addition, the online giant is allegedly expected to handle nearly half of all online shopping sales in the US this year and almost 5% of its total retail market.
Currently, it has over 575,000 employees. Other sub-operations include storage, logistics, loans and a platform that allows third-party sellers to sell. It also had a thriving cloud computing division. In 2017, it acquired Whole foods, and it took over an online pharmacy earlier this year. The company isn’t stopping anytime soon as sources claim it is still on the lookout for new ventures.
