The Rise of Amazon (Blog #5)

 We live in a world that feels completely controlled by electronics and each day technology advances tremendously. Back then no one would have ever imagined a world where you could order anything you wanted to your doorstep, let alone even order something online. Still, people's lives worldwide changed forever when Jeff Bezos released his internet invention "Amazon.com" in 1995 and fun fact, Amazon was actually close to being named "Cadabra" as in an acronym for "Abracadabra," yet Bezos's lawyer misheard him for the word "Cadaver," which means corpse, so he decided to come up with more names. 

Bezos began his career working at a management investment company called D.E. Shaw, and quit in 1994 to pursue the development of his ideology on the internet. When working at the company he had access to a computer system, and when playing around with these computers he learned that the internet was predicted to grow at a rate of over 2,000% in just one year. With this in mind, Bezos began to think about how inconvenient mail-order catalogs could be; since the postal time to receive and ship new mail could take at least two weeks for the customer to receive their product. This sparked a motivation in him to create something on the internet that people would find useful and just like that Amazon was invented on July 5th, 1994, although he did not release it to the public until 1995.

When coming up with a list of potential products to sell, he wanted to find something that many people enjoyed along with something that sold easily, while also selling a product that he would not have to write page-long biographies about for the website's description. He then decided that selling books would be the best thing since books were extremely popular and you do not have to have a huge description on a book other than the "book blurb" on the back. He learned all of his professional book-selling skills from a class he took from the American Sellers Association, and just after two months of selling books on his website Bezos was making at least $20,000 per week. At this rate, Amazon was now a huge competitor to Barnes and Noble.

All was going steady for Bezos until he thought it was time for a change in 1998. Since his website was doing so well, and technology continued to spread worldwide he wanted to change his horizon of product selections. He decided he wanted to try and sell CDs and DVDs since they had become significantly popular since the release of DVD players in 1998.  This was a great professional and business-owning call on his part, as revenue for the company increased 300% in a year after this change. Another change that Bezos profited significantly was creating the "Amazon Prime" program for his shoppers. Although Amazon had always had free shipping over $99 orders, he decided to create free two-day shipping for customers who would like to pay a fee of $75 a year, and many people decided it was worth it.

Amazon is now known as the number one online shopping website, due to its high selection of products, fast and free shipping, and occasional deals on higher-priced items. Amazon has peaked throughout the years since it was invented, and one main peak it received was the Covid-19 pandemic. Since everyone was told to stay put in their homes unless necessary, people began to take advantage of online shopping. Since Amazon had this two-day free shipping, many people began to order groceries, necessities, and things to keep them entertained. Since the pandemic went on for nearly two whole years, it became a norm for people to shop on Amazon weekly.

Although Amazon had its peak and huge impact on our society, it has also caused negative effects. Many well-known companies like Pary City, K-Mart, and Bed, Bath, and Beyond either permanently closed or filed for bankruptcy. Since it had been so easy for people to order things online with a bigger selection, these companies had no choice but to shut down since they could not afford to stay open. Many people felt that online shopping was so much easier than going to a store ten minutes away, and since Amazon had become so popular so quickly, people did not think to even look up these store's websites to order online.

Another major impact Amazon has made within the past few years would have to be its employment cuts. After the peak for Amazon ended in 2022, and the introduced its new CEO Andy Jassy, it began to have a decrease in its profit and decided to keep the company going to the best of its ability with inflation they needed to cut back on some pricing. This resulted in nearly 27,000 employees getting laid off or "pushed out" of the company. This left many people without a job within such a short period without notice to find a new one and the company began to suffer from the lack of help they had when trying to fulfill their mission statement of getting people their desired products within the two days. Personally, my dad just recently became unemployed with the company after his dedication for seven years all because of the changes that the company has been trying to change from these budget cut employees.

Overall, Amazon was an intelligent and unique invention that Bezos produced right from his garage, and his invention has forever changed the world especially when it comes to retail and technology. Although it has had its ups and downs as a company, Amazon will continue to dominate many other online shopping websites and will undoubtedly have more inventions to come.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/financial-reporting/article/94240-amazon-turns-2-7-billion-loss-in-2022-to-a-profit-of-30-billion-in-2023.html

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=EShp4X-WlmoC&oi=fnd&pg=PT8&dq=why+did+jeff+bezos+start+amazon&ots=5kUiqjsw0e&sig=1f0IAomG1xNzBGQQ86kl8Ui5fJA#v=onepage&q=why%20did%20jeff%20bezos%20start%20amazon&f=false

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StaMb1iwPNE