Retailing in Electronic Commerce: Products and Services

Abstract

In the early 1990s, entrepreneur Jeff Bezos saw an opportunity rather than a business problem. He decided that books were the most logical product for selling online. In July 1995, Bezos started Amazon.com (amazon.com) and began selling books online. Over the years, the company has continually improved, expanded, changed its business model, and expanded its product selection, improving customer experience, and adding new products and services and business alliances. The company also recognized the importance of order fulfillment and warehousing early on. It has invested billions of dollars building physical warehouses and distribution centers designed for shipping packages to millions of customers. In 2012, the company started same day delivery from its new distribution centers. After 2000, the company added information technology products and services, notably the Kindle e-reader family as well as Web Services (cloud technologies). Amazon.com’s challenge was, and still is, to profitably sell many consumer products and services online.