Two Page Overview of Three Companies - Essay Example

Overview of Borders, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble The three companies that I have chosen to write overviews about include Borders, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. These companies have all been quite successful during a period of time and have expanded with the coming of this success to grow even larger than what is presumed was originally expected.Barnes and Noble is the biggest retailer of books in the United States and operate through a chain of bookstores although their headquarters is located in Manhattan, New York.

The company was founded in the year 1873 by a man named Charles Barns who set up a book printing business in Illinois. The first real bookstore of Barnes & Noble was actually opened by Charles’ son named William who partnered with a gentleman named Clifford Noble thus the origin of the name Barnes & Noble. The bookstore was opened in the year 1917 in New York City, and has grown to the illustrious business it is now over the years. Barnes & Noble is known for its upscale retail shops that are usually accompanied with cafes serving starbucks coffee among other products.

Although it is officially known as a retail bookstore, this is not the only product that they have to offer, and one can find other items such as magazines, comics, newspapers as well as music within the store’s retail outlets. The company currently has over 600 stores under its flagship up to date excluding the over 600 college stores it operates as well (Barnes & Noble Inc).Amazon.com is a multinational company that operates through electric commerce through its website that has been popularized around the world.

It is believed to be the largest online business in the world and has a consumer base that is located all over the world. It headquarters are located in Seattle, Washington and it sells a large number of items on its online stores. Since it is an online retail store, its expansion cannot be seen on a physical scale but can be pointed out through the different retail websites that it has developed for different countries such as Canada, Italy, Germany, and the United States among others. It also has plans to set up separate online retail stores for more countries including Brazil, Sweden and the Netherlands.

The company was founded by a man call Jeff Bezos in the year 1994, but it was released onto the website community as amazon.com in 1995. The company sells everything from electronic products, toys, books to name but a few and has recently began producing its own electronic products such as the Kindle e book reader and tablet computer known as Kindle Fire. Amazon initially started as an online book store before expanding to other areas after initial success (Amazon.com Inc).The Borders Group was a music and books retailer that was based in Michigan, U.S.A.

The company employed over 19000 people in various book stores, but met with financial trouble over the years and was forced to sell its stores based in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand in 2008. The company the formally applied for bankruptcy in 2011 and began liquidating their stores when they could not find a suitable by the required deadline (Borders Group).My final research will be on Barns & Noble, as they are on the brink of going bankrupt as well thus providing a suitable case study for the stages that a company undergoes during this process and what can be done to avoid it.

My research will try to figure out what the company is doing that is resulting to market failure and the strategies that can be put in place to ensure that its business thrives and it gains a competitive advantage over other book retailer.Works CitedAmazon.com. About Amazon, 2012. Web. November 3, 2012.Barnes & Noble Inc. About Barnes & Noble, 2012. Web. November 3, 2012.Borders Group. Borders - Books, Music and Movies. Web. November 3, 2012.Exner, Rich. Borders history, beginning with first store in 1971: Sundays Numbers, 2011.

The Plain Dealer. Web. November 3, 2012.Bibliography“About Barnes & Noble.com” Barnes&Noble. Barnes & Noble. n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2012.“Amazon.com companies” opencorporates. Open Corporates. n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2012."Borders - Books, Music and Movies". Borders. Borders Group. n.d. Web. 3 Nov. 2012Robert Spector (2000). amazon.com - Get Big Fast : Inside the Revolutionary Business Model That Changed the World. Harper Collins Publishers. Mike Daisey (2002). 21 Dog Years. Free Press. Mara Friedman (2004). Amazon.com for Dummies.

Wiley Publishing.