Amazon Survey Background - Research Paper Example

Amazon Research Survey Background Amazon was founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos who is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com. In 1994, he became successful in inventing and launching a web based selling platform, which he named Amazon. Jeffrey Becoz is an electrical engineer and computer science graduate from Princeton University. Amazon was one of the first web-based technologies to use software, which had the capacity of monitoring each online customer’s preferences. This made it possible for the company’s products to be recommended to other interested individuals through either personal web page or through the email connection (Ceruzzi, 2003).

In only four months of operation, Amazon website became a very prevalent website by having high scores in several Internet rankings (Amazon.com, 1998). Usability of Amazon was very simplified. The customers only needed to enter the title or any other relevant information of the book or the product they wished to buy. Amazon then searched its internet database and displayed the most relevant titles of the book or item. The customer was then expected to fill in the credit card payment details after which the item would be shipped and delivered to the customer’s location (Layton, 2008).

Within two years time, Amazon becomes a public limited company offering 3 million shares common stock of share-subscription. The IPO was offered in 1997 (Doyl, 2008). Another growth area of the Amazon is successful “Association program” which was established in July 1996. The program allowed people to choose their own web site advertising on the book of interest. Amazon then allows customers to buy the book even when the book is featured in a different website. As the Customers buys the book through Amazon, which takes care of all orders, the associate website makes 3% to 8% commission from the books sold on their website (Bellomo, and Elad, 2006).

Amazon expanded its business through acquisition of three groups in early 1998. Two of the companies made it possible for Amazon to expand its business operations to European markets. Bookpages is one of the largest online retailers in the UK, which provided Amazon.com access to the U.K market. Telebook, the largest online booksellers in Germany, provided Amazon with access to German markets. Bookpages, and Telebook corporations not only brought new European and German customers access to the Amazon.

com, but also provide opportunity for the existing Amazon customers to access more books from all over the world (Amazon.com, 1998). Amazon not only deals with business and consumers, it also sells customers and developers at the same time. Amazon allows seller clients, including personal, small business, big company, to sell their products on amazon. However, consumers should fulfil their orders through from amazon. This enables customer to shop products owned by different sellers in a single checkout.

Works Cited Amazon.com 1998, Amazon.com Acquires Three Leading Internet Companies, viewed 17 March 2012 Bellomo, M and Elad, J. 2006, How to Sell Anything on Amazon.and Make a Fortune! McGraw-Hill Professional, India. Ceruzzi, P 2003 A history of modern computing, MIT Press, New York. Doyl, P 2008, Value-based Marketing: Marketing Strategies for Corporate Growth and Shareholder Value, John Wiley & Sons, London. Layton, J 2008, How Amazon Works, viewed, 17 March 2012