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.