Changing The Way We Do Things

Jeffrey Bezos saw an opportunity in the internet. While there were many mail order businesses, there was virtually none with regards to books. Having a large catalogue of books to order from would be too large to mail. This huge information could easily be placed on a website where people could order their books and have them delivered to their homes. There would also be no need to mail such a long list of books to individual homes; a good way to utilize the internet.

His employers were not keen on the idea so like other great entrepreneurs he ventured out on his own. The major book sellers already had an electronic data base of the books they offered so it was simply a matter of putting all this information together and letting the public be aware of it. This was the start of Amazon.com which is one of the largest internet shopping sites in the world.

The company started out in a two bedroom house and officially launched its site on July 16, 1995. It quickly gained many customers and the company made constant improvements to website.  Bezos emphasized market share even at the expense of profit. There were skeptics but his approach has now been proven correct with more profits coming in due to a large market share.

With its success in books the company expanded to electronics, DVDs, clothing and any other merchandise that could be sold through the internet and delivered to homes. What Bezos and Amazon.com   had done was create a change in the way people purchased items. People used to go to stores (and the vast majority still do) to buy something, now they can go to the internet, order online and wait for the item to be delivered to their doorstep.

Bezos also launched Kindle in 2007. This allows you to order a book and download it to a tablet device and read it from there. You can now have so many books in one sleek device, which is way better than having to carry 100 books around. Through Kindle, Amazon is now selling more books through electronic download than having a hard copy delivered physically.

Bezos helped change the way we purchased items, now he’s also changing the way and the medium of reading a book. These are significant changes.