Amazon.com | Electric Thoughts in a Digital Era

Who is Amazon’s biggest challenger?

Having read George Taylor’s interesting article on “The battle over global commerce: Amazon vs Rakuten“, I feel a bit of perspective is needed. Amazon is a true giant that spans over many different business and Rakuten is the challenger trying to catch up. However, they are not the only commerce companies that want to be global.

I spent time in Seattle and New York in the latter part of October 2012 and one company has been following me coast to coast is Amazon.com. I had meetings with folks in operations and research and Amazon was given plenty of air time.

The Amazon value proposition summarized

I have been following the Amazon Kindle event in Los Angeles and could not help but feel that Bezos is becoming a better presenter. OK – he is no Jobs but the products unveiled today is definitely aimed Apple and Google.

The Amazon value proposition is summarized brilliantly by the following image from The Verge‘s coverage of the event. (For the record their live blogging of events are top class).

The image can be seen with all of the announcements here: Live from Amazon’s Kindle event

Two of those items are up for discussion (Best Hardware and Best Interoperability). The Kindle Fire HD is a direct response to the Google Nexus I believe. I think we can all agree that a Apple iPad mini is on the way..

The above image highlights what makes Amazon.com, the behemoth that has the potential to shut ecommerce verticals and businesses down..

The Amazon effect

“Google = fab search, Amazon = top-notch retail, Apple = elegant devices, Microsoft = dominant Windows, Facebook = best social networking.”
Kara Swisher, on Yahoo

The last few days have been busy for Amazon and in all honesty, I think the bigger implications of this week will be seen in future quarters. I have been deliberately not mentioning Google in this as I think the implications of a paid for Google product search (Google Shopping) is much larger than what is expected.

Why Amazon.com is neither Friend or Foe..

Earlier today Brian Walker from Forrester Research wrote a very interesting summary post on a research document on Amazon.com, called Amazon.com: Friend or Foe? I have great respect for both Brian Walker and co-author Suchurita Mulpuru and would love to see the research piece. As much as I respect them both, Amazon.com is a complex Rubiks cube that is both secretive and dominant in how they are perceived. All the news that they want the world to see is either given to the press or released via press release.

The 10 e-commerce stories for the week ending 12 July 2012

Phew, what a week. It feels like the headlines were dominated by one ecommerce company this past week. The problem is that this company is a Rubik’s cube and plays in a variety of verticals. Amazon.com is what I am talking about. The Financial Times had a great amount of coverage this week (all behind a paywall) but the truth is that no-one except the Emperor Bezos knows what the kingdom has in store for the ecommerce market.

Let me be blunt, if you don’t keep an eye on Amazon then you are ignorant. I am tempted to say you that you are destined for something like a Black Swan (which is far from something of beauty). I am expecting an Amazon smartphone as Bezos wants to ensure that he owns the customer journey.. whether it happens is another story. I have a confession to make as well. Yes, facebook commerce is on my mind and I think Thefind.com through their Glimpse product is on to something…