Case Study of On-line Book Selling

Read Appendix 21B (Case Study of On-line Book Selling)

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When Amazon started, Jeff Bezos the founder chose books and leveraged the use of the internet. The business was not a brick and mortar bookstore and while he initially stocked over 200 books, he was able to contact many book distributors that he had over 2 million book titles. As the business was growing Bezos focused on receiving customer money up front and paying the distributors after 30 days (Stallings & Case, 2013). Amazon was creating a solution, by making it possible to purchase whatever book customer wanted so long as they were stocked.

Amazon had a wide selection of book titles, and information technology helped to support, organize and facilitate the search for various books. Music was ranked second in the catalog of items. In 1998, Bezos decided to sell music (CDs) and videos (DVDs), to the core of its business around was the books, music and videos with items broadly placed in these categories. As such, the changes in Amazon’s network integrated changes in items sold and competing with the large distribution companies. The change in marketing slogans captures the changes from "Earth's biggest bookstore” to "Earth's biggest book and music store" and then "Earth's biggest selection” (Stallings & Case, 2013). As such, there was greater complexity in the logistic process and the management of the returns of these products.

Amazon does not have physical stores, but has built more warehouses in different locations, but this has allowed the company to increase growth as there is greater emphasis on handling goods. Amazon made more acquisitions between 1998 and 2000 including international expansion and opening up new subsidiaries, which present logistical challenges and the need to adapt to customs and characteristics of the different markets (Santos, Hortaçsu, & Wildenbeest, 2012). The company focused on