How Amazon Became One of Todays Major Online Retail Players Essay

How Amazon Became One of Todays Major Online Retail Players - Essay Example Amazon.com is a multinational electronic commerce company and is the world’s largest online retailer. It was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994. As Fisk (2009, p. 102) states, the company started its business operations as on online bookstore and rapidly grew as a retailer of DVDs, CDs, MP3 downloads, video games, apparel, computer software, food and toys. The firm provides international shipping services to several countries in order to market some of its products. In 2010, the company earned US$34.304 billion as revenues on the strength of its 33,700 employees. The company’s remarkable achievements during a short period of time can be directly attributed to its strategic changes in the E-commerce practice. The retail E-commerce can be classified into two broad categories such as traditional forms and modern forms. The traditional forms of E-commerce mainly constituted online shopping which is a process that enables customers to purchase required products from any part of t he globe as and when needed. The idea of a â€Å"virtual bookstore† assisted the Amazon to dominate the market since its very initial stages of business once this concept was new to consumers. In addition, the company offered special features related to selection, convenience, price, and service. The company’s huge database of 1.1 million titles aided its customers to get a wide range of book selection (University of Washington). Amazon’s patented ‘1-Click’ express shooting technology provided greater convenience to customers as this feature made the ordering process easy. Amazon also allowed high discounts on best sellers. â€Å"The e-mail and telephone customer support, automated order confirmation, and tracking and shipping information† were the innovative service features of the company (Introduction to E-commerce). Since the internet has imposed little selling regulation on the firm, it could rapidly grow using its real-time optimization strategy.