Page 139 - Using MIS

Case Study 3 107
First online Amazon.com Prime
bookseller Alexa Web Information Service
Launch of Amazon.com
Associates Program—sellers Kindle
earn revenue by featuring Amazon.com Web
Amazon.com products Services enhance-
on their Web sites ments and upgrades
TM
1-Click Shopping Kindle 2 and
Kindle DX
Amazon.com Advantage Kindle
Program—self-service applications
consignment sales for media for iPhone and
Amazon.com iPod Touch
auctions—competitor Kindle for Prime Air
to eBay that failed Mac, iPad, 3D Printing Store
Android,
and Web Kindle Fire Phone

1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Amazon.com Associates Amazon Coins
Web Services—gives
developers access to Kindle Paperwhite
Amazon.com product data Kindle Fire HD
Search Inside the Book TM Kindle
Amazon.com Web Fire
Services (AWS)—leasing
of computer infrastructure
Figure 3-18 Borders Group Alliance and
Target Stores Alliance
Innovation at Amazon
Source: Data from Amazon. Launches Marketplace—sellers
com: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/ can sell goods on the Amazon.com
phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol- Web site and Amazon.com
corporateTimeline, accessed June 2013. can fulll the orders

infrastructure—just imagine the information systems and ful- Amazon created the business model for online retailing. It
fillment facilities needed to ship 36.8 million items on a single began as an online bookstore, but every year since 1998 it has
day. That infrastructure, however, is needed only during the added new product categories. The company is involved in all
busy holiday season. Most of the year, Amazon is left with ex- aspects of online retailing. It sells its own inventory. It incen-
cess infrastructure capacity. Starting in 2000, Amazon began to tivizes you, via the Associates program, to sell its inventory as
lease some of that capacity to other companies. In the process, well. Or it will help you sell your inventory within its product
it played a key role in the creation of what are termed cloud pages or via one of its consignment venues. Online auctions
services, which you will learn about in Chapter 6. For now, just are the major aspect of online sales in which Amazon does not
think of cloud services as computer resources somewhere out participate. It tried auctions in 1999, but it could never make
in the Internet that are leased on flexible terms. inroads against eBay. 5
Today, Amazon’s business lines can be grouped into three Today, it’s hard to remember how much of what we take for
major categories: granted was pioneered by Amazon. “Customers who bought
this, also bought that;” online customer reviews; customer
• Online retailing
• Order fulfillment ranking of customer reviews; books lists; Look Inside the Book;
• Cloud services automatic free shipping for certain orders or frequent custom-
ers; and Kindle books and devices were all novel concepts
Consider each. when Amazon introduced them.

5 For a fascinating glimpse of this story from someone inside the company, see “Early Amazon: Auctions” at http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/04/early-
amazon-auctions.html, accessed August 2012.