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DEVELOPING NEW BUSINESS IDEAS60

superior integrated result at a low delivered cost. In addition to the
online personalisation offered by Amazon.com, the emotional element of
the customer relationship was reinforced with a high level of regular
e-mail correspondence.

challenge the traditional
retailer–buyer relationship

Bezos did not create artificial boundaries for himself. His business
would be global, evoked by the name of the world’s longest river (albeit
after the first incorporated name of Cadabra had been discarded). By the
same token, he did not restrict the subject areas where his company
would compete; quite the reverse. As Bezos himself admitted: ‘When
Amazon.com started, there were smaller online bookstores, but none of
them had the goal of having every book in print in stock and that
certainly has been our goal from day one.’

Mattocks’ Internet Bookshop was dominated by just one niche – science
fiction. Mattocks had lived most of his life in the university city of Oxford
and had no desire to leave, although it was miles away from the nearest
book warehouse or distribution centre. In contrast, Bezos kept an open
mind on where the physical operation should be sited. Research finally led
Bezos to relocate from the East to the West coast and site operations in
Seattle. Microsoft’s home town provided easy access to America’s largest
book wholesaler, a pool of computer experts from which to recruit talent
and proximity to Silicon Valley’s computer gurus and venture capitalists.

Nor did Bezos define his business within the boundaries of
conventional book retailing. He recognised that the critical expertise for
his business lay in information technology, systems, retail and logistics.
Early executive appointments included functional experts from Wal-Mart
and Microsoft. Alongside hiring the best people, he bought the best
computers; he scrimped on almost everything else – doors were turned
into desktops, a sheet of paper stuck in a plant in the lobby announced
Amazon.com’s headquarters.

Bezos recognised that the critical expertise
for his business lay in information
technology, systems, retail and logistics