Nature of Amazon

Company Background

Amazon was established in 1994 by Jeff Bezos and was originally named Cadabra. The name was changed to Amazon after the Amazon River, which is the largest in the world, which implies size.
Amazon is doing very well financially, even with the global recession and general economic problems affecting the population. In 2009 it received $902million of income. This meant that the business is now has a total of $13.8billion in money and resources.

Amazon has no actual shops because all transactions are made online. Apart from the company offices, the only buildings that Amazon owns are warehouses where they store the products they are selling. 

Amazon was originally an American company, and is still based in Seattle. However due to its popularity and growth it has started to operate in many countries including Europe, Canada, China and Japan.

What is e-commerce? (introduction)

Defining E-commerce
E-commerce is where people make transactions online. These can range from buying groceries to ordering a new television to booking a holiday. Also, changing a mortgage policy or buying insurance over the internet can be classed as e-commerce.

How it is affect business
In June 2010 it is estimated that £4.4billion was spent online in the UK. This compares to the £3.7billion that was spent last June online in the UK. This shows that more people are using online shopping nowadays as opposed to last year

For the year 2010 e-commerce in the UK is predicted to reach £56billion. In 2001 ecommerce sales in the UK where £1.8 billion. These facts show that there has been an increase of approximately 3000% in 10.

E-commerce sites
Some of the most well known e-commerce sites are Tesco.com, Play.Com and Amazon.com.
Tesco Online is used predominantly for grocery shopping where the customer places an order and then the products get delivered in the next few days.

Play.com is known for selling a lot of computer equipment. This includes CDs, DVDs, Blue-ray discs and video-games.

Amazon has been described as an "online supermarket" in that it is possible to buy almost anything. All the products on Play.com can be found as well as many others. Although some food can be purchased on Amazon, the range of products is not as wide as the range from Tesco.

I will be looking in detail at Amazon because it is a very large business, has the widest range of products and has many features incorporated into the website.

What is the digital divide?

What is the digital divide?

"The Digital divide is the term used to describe a group of people that are "divided" from the modern ways of the internet and other forms of information technology. The groups that suffer the most tend to be senior citizens, those with literacy issues and poorer families and/or countries that simply don't have the financial means to keep up with the cost of acquiring the technology" http://answers.ask.com/Health/Mental/who_suffers_from_the_digital_divide

The digital divide can affect people in different ways based on who they are and what is causing the digital divide to happen to them. There are many causes of the digital divide. Some of the main ones are: poverty, access to resources and age. These can be specified to a person or affect a whole region or country.

graphs

http://www.metrics2.com/blog/2007/04/19/broadband_internet_access_reaches_77_wireless_conn.html

 



















The graph shows internet speeds in different countries. High speed email is the standard that developed countries try to use. Dial up modems are now considered to be old fashioned and very slow. These are being phased out in developed countries. This graph shows that in general developed countries have a higher proportion of people with high speed connections as opposed to dial up connections. Also less developed countries have a greater proportion of dial up connections as opposed to high speed connections.
Although the Uk is a developed country just over half of the population have a high speed connection.  This is because there are a lot of upland and rural areas in the UK. This areas do not have high speed connections as it is difficult to lay the cables to provide it.

http://cleantech-nrg.com/csr-program.php

This graph shows how a lot of third world countries do not have wide-spread access to electricity. This lack of electricity means that a lot of people can not use computers. A lot of developing countries burn wood for energy. This is often used to provide heating for houses. Rarely wood is used in power stations but it is very inefficient.

Conclusion



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide

This graph shows how the amount of people using the internet changes over time. From 97-04 the amount of people using the internet in developed countries increased dramatically.  Over the same time there is a very minor increase for developing countries. This means that the digital divide got worse during this time. However from 05-07 there is only a minor increase for developed countries. During the same time the amount of people who use the internet in developing countries is beginning to increase more rapidly. This shows that the digital divide is being reduced, and if this trend continues there will not be a large gap between developed and developing countries.




graphs

http://www.scholarshipsforkids.org/images/poverty-map.png

This map shows averages of the amount people earn in different countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide



This map shows an average of the number of computers per 100 people in different countries. It shows a similar pattern to the other map. In areas where people earn a lot of money lots of people have computers. Likewise in countries where people earn less amounts of money less people have computers.









http://tikor.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/digital-divide1.jpg



These images shows a cycle which explains how low income jobs can increases the digital divide. If people have low income jobs they will find it harder to afford computers and connect to the internet. If people do not have computers they will not be able to gain the skills needed to use a computer or general information. This in turns results  in them getting low paid jobs.