CASE 9 Amazon.com, Inc.

Retailing giant to HigH-tecH PlayeR?

Alan N. Hoffman

Bentley University

Overview

Founded by Jeff Bezos, online giant Amazon.com, Inc. (Amazon), was incorporated in the state
of Washington in July, 1994, and sold its first book in July, 1995. In May 1997, Amazon
(AMZN) completed its initial public offering and its common stock was listed on the NASDAQ
Global Select Market. Amazon quickly grew from an on- line bookstore to the world’s largest
online retailer, greatly expanding its product and service offerings through a series of
acquisitions, alliances, partnerships, and exclusivity agreements. Amazon’s financial objective
was to achieve long-term sustainable growth and profitability. To attain this objective, Amazon
maintained a lean culture focused on increas- ing its operating income through continually
increasing revenue and efficiently managing

its working capital and capital expenditures, while tightly managing operating costs. The name
“Amazon” was evocative for founder Jeff Bezos of his vision of Amazon as a huge natural
phenomenon, like the longest river in the world. He envisioned the company to

be the largest online marketplace on earth someday. By 2008, Amazon had become a global
brand, with websites in Canada, the United Kingdom,

Germany, France, China, and Japan, with order fulfillment in more than 200 countries.1 Its
opera- tions were organized into two principal segments: North America and International
Operations, which grew to include Italy in 2010 and Spain in 2011. By 2012, Amazon employed
more than 56,200 people around the world working in the corporate office in Seattle, and in
software devel- opment, order fulfillment, and customer service centers in North America, Latin
America, Europe, and Asia.

The authors would like to thank Barbara Gottfried, Jodi Germann, Lauren-Ashley Higson, Faith
Naymie, Faina Shakarova, Jamal Ait Hammou, Muntasir Alam, Shaheel Dholakia, Xinxin Zhu,
and Will Hoffman for their research and contributions to this case. Please address all
correspondence to: Dr. Alan N. Hoffman, Dept. of Management, Bentley University, 175 Forest
Street, Waltham, MA 02452-4705, voice (781) 891-2287, ahoffman@bentley.edu. Printed by
permission of Alan N. Hoffman.

461
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462 CASE 9 Amazon.com, Inc. Amazon Corporate Governance

Jeff Bezos is the Chairman of the Board and CEO of Amazon and owns 19.4% of the company.
Amazon has three board committees of which two are standard: the audit commit- tee and the
governance committee. The third committee, the Leadership Development and Compensation
Committee, is uncommon. Most publicly traded companies have a compensation committee;
however, it is unusual for the compensation committee to have leadership development as part of
its mandate. The Leadership Development and Com- pensation Committee “monitors and
periodically assesses the continuity of capable man-

agement, including succession plans for executive officers.” Amazon’s board is not populated by
CEOs or retired CEOs. It includes several venture

capitalists, a number of senior-level executives from varied industries, an eminent scientist, and a
representative from the non-profit sector.

Amazon’s board has served together for a long time. This implies a deeper understanding of the
company and increasing familiarity and even friendship amongst the group. This tends to
discourage independent thinking and objectivity.

All of it is further proof that Jeff Bezos is a strong CEO and runs the company.

Retail Operations/Amazon’s Superior Website

As people became more comfortable shopping on line, Amazon developed its website to take
advantage of increased Internet traffic and to serve its customers most effectively.2 The hall-
marks of Amazon’s appeal were ease of use; speedy, accurate search results; selection, price, and
convenience; a trustworthy transaction environment; timely customer service; and fast, reliable
fulfillment3—all of it enabled by the sophisticated technology the company encouraged its
employees to develop to better serve its customers. The site, which offered a huge array of
products sold both by itself and by third parties, was particularly designed to create a person-
alized shopping experience that helped customers discover new products and make efficient,
informed buying decisions.

Key to Amazon’s success was continual website improvement. A huge part of the technological
work done for Amazon was dedicated to identifying problems, developing solutions, and
enhancing customers’ online experience. Jacob Lepley, in his “Amazon Marketing Strategy:
Report One,” notes that, “when you visit Amazon . . . you can use [it] to find just about any item
on the market at an extremely low price. Amazon has made it very simple for customers to
purchase items with a simple click of the mouse. . . . When you have everything you need, you
make just one payment and your orders are processed.”4 This simple system is the same whether
a customer purchases directly from Amazon or from one of its associates.

Pursuing perfection, Amazon was aggressive in analyzing its website’s traffic and modi- fying
the website accordingly. Amazon particularly excelled at customer tracking, collecting data from
every visit to its website. Utilizing the information, Amazon then directed users to products that
it surmised they might be interested in because the item was either related to a product that they
had previously searched for or purchased by another Amazon customer looking for a similar
product.

Recommendations were also customized based on the information customers provided about
themselves and their interests, and their ratings prior purchased. Amazon also collected data on
those who had never visited any of its websites, but who had received gifts from those who had
used the site.

One of Amazon’s most distinctive features was the community created based on the
ratings/reviews provided by private individuals to help others make more informed pur- chasing
decisions. Anyone could provide a narrative review and rate a product on a scale of 1–5 stars,
and/or comment on others’ reviews. Individuals could also create their own “So You’d Like . . .”
guides and “Listmania” lists based on Amazon’s products offer- ings and post them or send them
to friends and family. To streamline customer research, Amazon also consolidated different
versions of a product (e.g., DVD, VHS, Blu-ray disk) into a single product available for
commentary that simplified commentary and user accessibility.5

To further target potential customers, Amazon engaged in permission marketing, elicit- ing
permission to e-mail customers regarding specific production promotions based on prior
purchases on the assumption that a targeted e-mail was more likely to be read than a blanket e-
mail. This strategy was hugely appreciated by Amazon customers, further contributing to
Amazon’s success.

In addition, Amazon purchased pay-per-click advertisements on search engines such as Google

to direct browsing customers to its websites. The ads appeared on the left-hand side of the search
list results, and Amazon paid a fee for each visitor who clicked on its sponsored link.

At the same time, as “TV and billboard ads were roughly ten times less effective when compared
to direct or online marketing when concerning customer acquisition costs”6, Amazon reduced its
offline marketing. The strategy was simple: as customers shopped online, online marketing was
key. However, in 2010, Amazon initiated a small television advertising campaign to increase
brand awareness.
 Finally, to round out its customer care, Amazon expedited shipping by strategically locat- ing its
fulfillment centers near airports7 where rents were also cheaper, giving Amazon the two-pronged
advantage of speed and low cost over its competitors. Furthermore, in the United States, the
United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan, Amazon offered subscribers to Amazon Prime the added
convenience of free express shipping. Amazon Prime’s free next-day de- livery endeared it to
Amazon customers, again contributing to the customer loyalty that was key to Amazon’s
success. Amazon Prime cost $79 annually to join and included free access to Amazon Instant
Video. The overarching objective of the company was to offer low prices, convenience, and a
wide selection of merchandise, a pared down, yet wide-reaching strategy that made Amazon
such a huge success.

Diversified Product Offerings

Amazon diversified its product portfolio well beyond simply offering books, which in turn
allowed it to diversify its customer mix. In 2007, Amazon successfully launched the Kindle, its
$79 e-book reader, which offered users more than one million reasonably priced books and
newspapers easily accessed on its handheld device. Competitor Apple, Inc., then intro- duced the
iPad, the first tablet computer, in January 2010, sparking further development of mobile e-
readers. E-book sales took off immediately, increasing by more than 100%, accord- ing to the
Association of American Publishers. Eager to compete in a market for which it was uniquely
positioned, Amazon quickly developed its own low-cost tablet, the Kindle Fire, an Android-
based tablet with a color touchscreen priced at $199, more than $300 lower than the iPad,
sacrificing profit margins in search of sales volume and market-share gains. Other tech giants
such as RIMM and HP were unable to compete with the iPad. Only the Sony Nook, the Amazon
Kindle and Kindle Fire, and the Samsung Galaxy and Series 7 tablets challenged Apple’s
consistent 60% of market share. Ultimately, however, Amazon’s huge growth derived not simply
from the sale of Kindle hardware and the growth of e-book sales,

CASE 9 Amazon.com, Inc. 463

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CASE 9

Amazon.com, Inc.

but from its diversification and the continual expansion of the easy website access created by
mobile devices.
 By 2010, 43% of Amazon net sales were from media, including books, music, DVDs/ video
products, magazine subscriptions, digital downloads, and video games. More than half of all
Amazon sales came from computers, mobile devices including the Kindle, Kindle Fire, and
Kindle Touch, and other electronics, as well as general merchandise from home and gar- den
supplies to groceries, apparel, jewelry, health and beauty products, sports and outdoor
equipment, tools, and auto and industrial supplies.

Amazon also offered its own credit card, a form of co-branding that benefited all parties:
Amazon, the credit card company (Chase Bank), and the consumer. Amazon benefited be- cause
it received money from the credit card company both directly from Amazon purchases and
indirectly from fees generated from non-Amazon purchases. In addition, Amazon ben- efited
from the company loyalty generated by having its own credit card the consumer sees and uses
every day. The credit card company gained from Amazon’s high visibility, increasing its
potential customer base and transactions. And the consumer earned credit toward gift cer-
tificates with each use of the card.

Partnerships

Amazon leveraged its expertise in online order taking and order fulfillment and developed
partnerships with many retailers whose websites it hosted and managed, including (cur- rently or
in the past) Target, Sears Canada, Bebe Stores, Timex Corporation, and Marks & Spencer.
Amazon offered services comparable to those it offered customers on its own websites, thus
freeing those retailers to focus on the non-website, non-technological aspects of their
operations.8

In addition, Amazon Marketplace allowed independent retailers and third-party sellers to sell
their products on Amazon by placing links on their websites to Amazon.com or to specific
Amazon products. Amazon was “not the seller of record in these transactions, but instead
earn[ed] fixed fees, revenue share fees, per-unit activity fees, or some combination thereof.”9
Linking to Amazon created visibility for these retailers and individual sellers, adding value to
their websites, increasing their sales, and enabling them to take advantage of Amazon’s
convenience and fast delivery. Sellers shipped their products to an Amazon warehouse or
fulfillment center, where the company stored it for a fee, and when an order was placed, shipped
out the product on the seller’s behalf. This form of affiliate market- ing came at nearly no cost to
Amazon. Affiliates used straight text links leading directly to a product page and they also
offered a range of dynamic banners that featured different content.

Web Services

As a major tech player, Amazon developed a number of web services, including ecommerce,
database, payment and billing, web traffic, and computing. These web services provided access
to technology infrastructure that developers were able to utilize to enable various types of virtual
businesses. The web services (many of which were free) created a reliable, scalable, and
inexpensive computing platform that revolutionized the online presence of small busi- nesses.
For instance, Amazon’s e-commerce Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) program allowed merchants
 to direct inventory to Amazon’s fulfillment centers; after products were purchased, Amazon
packed and shipped. This freed merchants from a complex ordering process while

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allowing them control over their inventory. Amazon’s Fulfillment Web Service (FWS)
added to FBA’s program. FWS let retailers embed FBA capabilities straight into their own sites,
vastly enhancing their business capabilities.

In 2012, Amazon announced a cloud storage solution (Amazon Glacier) from Amazon Web
Services (AWS), a low-cost solution for data archiving, backups, and other long-term storage
projects where data not accessed frequently could be retained for future reference. Companies
often incurred significant costs for data archiving in anticipation of growing backup demand,
which led to under-utilized capacity and wasted money. With Amazon Glacier, companies were
able to keep costs in line with actual usage, so managers could know the exact cost of their
storage systems at all times. With Amazon Glacier, Amazon continued to dominate the space of
cold storage, which had first come into prominence in 2009, amidst competitors such as
Rackspace (RAX) and Microsoft (MSFT) offering their own solutions.

By 2012, Amazon Web Services were a crucial facet of Amazon’s profit base, and Amazon was
one of the lead players in the fast-growing retail ecommerce market. Seeing huge growth
potential, Amazon made the decision to expand Amazon Web Services (AWS) internationally
and invested heavily in technology infrastructure to support the rapid growth in AWS. Though
its investments in ecommerce threatened to suppress its near-term margin growth, Amazon
expected to benefit in the long term, given the significant growth potential in domestic and, even
more so, in international ecommerce.

Amazon’s Acquisition of Zappos, Quidsi, Living Social, and Lovefilm

On July 22, 2009, Amazon acquired Zappos, the online shoe and clothing retailer, for $1.2
billion. At that time, Zappos was reporting over $1 billion in annual sales without any marketing
or advertising. According to founder Tony Hsieh, the secret to Zappos’ success was superior
customer service, from its 365-day return guarantee to the company tours with which it regaled
visitors, picking them up at the airport, then returning them to the airport afterward. Zappos’
employees were also very well treated, earning it a place at the top of the list of the “best
companies to work for.” Tony Hsieh felt that Amazon was the perfect partner to fuel Zappo’s
sales growth going forward.

On November 8, 2010, Amazon announced the acquisition of Quidsi, the parent company of
Diapers.com, an online baby care specialty site, and Soap.com, an online site for everyday
essentials. Amazon paid $500 million in cash, and assumed $45 million in debt and other ob-
ligations. As Jeff Bezos explained, “This acquisition brings together two companies who are
 committed to providing great prices and fast delivery to parents, making one of the chores of
being a parent a little easier and less expensive.”12

On December 2, 2010, Amazon announced that it had invested $175 million in Groupon
competitor LivingSocial, a site whose up-to-the-minute research offered users immediate access
to the hottest restaurants, shops, activities, and services in a given area, while saving them 50%
to 70% through special site deals.

On January 20, 2011, Amazon acquired Lovefilm for £200 million, a 1.6-million- subscriber-
strong European Web-based DVD rental service based in London. Lovefilm had followed
Netflix’s business model, offering unlimited DVD rentals by mail for a monthly subscription fee
of £9.99, but planned to challenge Netflix and expand its digital media busi- ness by entering the
live-streaming subscription business.

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CASE 9

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Competitors

Competition was fierce for Amazon on all fronts, from catalogue and mail order houses to retail
stores from book, music, and video stores to retailers of electronics, home furnish- ings, auto
parts, and sporting goods. Amazon’s Kindle contended with Apple’s iPad, among many lesser
competitors. And Amazon’s competitors in the service sector included other e-commerce and
Web service providers. The company faced direct competition from com- panies such as eBay,
Apple, Barnes & Noble, Overstock.com, MediaBay, Priceline.com, PCMall.com, and
RedEnvelope.com. Amazon had to compete with companies that pro- vided their own products
or services, sites that sold or distributed digital content such as iTunes and Netflix, and media
companies such as The New York Times. Many of the com- pany’s competitors had greater
resources (eBay), longer histories (Barnes & Noble), more customers (Apple), or greater brand
recognition (iTunes).

The companies offering the most direct threat to Amazon were eBay and Metro AG. Pierre
Omidyar founded eBay in 1995, a website that connected individual buyers and sellers, including
small businesses to buy and sell virtually anything. In 2010, the total value of goods sold on
eBay was $62 billion, making eBay the world’s largest online marketplace, serving 39 markets
 with more than 97 million active users worldwide.10 eBay and Amazon subscribed to similar
growth strategies: each acquired a broad spectrum of companies. Over the 15 years from 1995–
2010 eBay acquired PayPal, Shopping.com, StubHub, and Bill Me Later, which have brought
new e-commerce efficiencies to eBay.

Metro AG, headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany, one of the world’s leading interna- tional
retail and wholesale companies, was formed through the merger of retail companies Asko
Deutsche Kaufhaus AG, Kaufhof Holding AG and Deutsche SB-Kauf AG. In 2010, the total
value of goods sold by Metro AG was €67 billion.11 Serving 33 countries, Metro AG offered a
comprehensive range of products and services designed to meet the specific shopping needs of
private and professional customers. Metro AG, like Amazon, focused on customer orientation,
efficiency, sustainability, and innovation.

Amazon had to be vigilant, negotiating more favorable terms from suppliers, adopting more
aggressive pricing and devoting more resources to technology, infrastructure, fulfillment, and
marketing. To maintain competitiveness, Amazon also strengthened its edge by entering into
alliances with other businesses (i.e., Amazon Marketplace). Nevertheless, growing com- petition
from global and domestic players continually threatened to erode Amazon’s desired share of the
market. Across the industries in which it competed, however, Amazon fought to maintain its
edge based on its core principles of “selection, price, availability, convenience, in- formation,
discovery, brand recognition, personalized services, accessibility, customer service, reliability,
speed of fulfillment, ease of use, and ability to adapt to changing conditions, as well as . . .
customers’ overall experience and trust.”12

Frustration-Free Packaging

To stay current, Amazon took the initiative to reduce its carbon footprint by implementing a
“Frustration Free Packaging” program. Recyclable Frustration Free Packaging came without
excess packaging materials such as hard plastic enclosures or wire twists and was designed to be
opened by hand without a scissors or a knife. Amazon then went one further and worked with the
original manufacturers to package products in Frustration Free Packaging right off the assembly
line, further reducing the use of plastic and paper. Units shipped that utilized Frustration Free
Packaging has increased very rapidly, from 1.3 million in 2009 to 4.0 million in 201013.
Amazon also utilized software to determine the right size box for any product the company
shipped, achieving a dramatic reduction in the number of packages shipped in over- sized boxes
and significantly reducing waste.

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CASE 9 Amazon.com, Inc. 467

Exhibit 1A
 Income Statement

Financial Operations

Amazon sales doubled from 2009 to 2011, growing from $24,509 million (2009) to $48,077
million (2011) (see Exhibits 1a and 1b), growth attributable especially to in- creased sales in
electronics and other general merchandise, and the adoption of a new accounting standard
update, reduced prices (including free shipping offers), increased in-stock inventory availability,
and the impact of the acquisition of Zappos in 2009.14

Amazon’s annual net income for 2009, 2010, and 2011 were $902 million, $1,152 million, and
$645 million, respectively. The significant increase from 2009 to 2010 was due in large part to
aggressive net sales growth and a large portion of its expenses and investments being fixed.
Management explained that net income decreased from 2010 to 2011 as a result of: (1) selling
Kindle hardware at a market price slightly below the cost of manufacture; (2) increased spend-
ing on technology infrastructure; and (3) increases in payroll expenses.

Income Statement Currency in (Millions of U.S. Dollars) as of: Dec 31 2008

Revenues 19,166.0

Dec 31 2009

24,509.0

24,509.0

18,978.0

5,531.0

3,060.0 1,240.0 51.0 4,351.0 1,180.0 –34.0 37.0 3.0 –6.0 26.0 –1.0 1,202.0 4.0 — -51.0 -51.0
1,155.0 253.0 902.0 902.0

902.0 902.0

Dec 31 2010

34,204.0

34,204.0

26,561.0

7,643.0
4,397.0 1,734.0 106.0 6,237.0 1,406.0 –39.0 51.0 12.0 7.0 75.0 3.0 1,503.0 1.0 — — — 1,504.0
352.0 1,152.0 1,152.0

1,152.0 1,152.0

Dec 31 2011

48,077.0

48,077.0

37,288.0

10,789.0

6,864.0 2,909.0 154.0 9,927.0 862.0 –65.0 61.0 –4.0 –12.0 64.0 8.0 918.0 4.0 — — — 922.0
291.0 631.0 631.0

631.0 631.0

Total Revenues

Cost of Goods Sold

Gross Profit

Selling, General, & Admin Expenses, Total R&D Expenses Other Operating Expenses Other
Operating Expenses, Total Operating Income

Interest Expense Interest and Investment Income Net Interest Expense Income (Loss) on Equity
Investments Currency Exchange Gains (Loss) Other Non-Operating Income (Expenses) Ebt,
Excluding Unusual Items Gain (Loss) on Sale of Investments Gain (Loss) on Sale of Assets
Other Unusual Items, Total Legal Settlements Ebt, Including Unusual Items Income Tax
Expense Earnings from Continuing Operations Net Income Net Income to Common Including
Extra Items Net Income to Common Excluding Extra Items Report Data Issue

19,166.0

14,896.0

4,270.0

2,419.0 1,033.0 29.0 3,481.0 789.0 –71.0 83.0 12.0 –9.0 23.0 22.0 837.0 2.0 53.0 — — 892.0
247.0 645.0 645.0

645.0 645.0
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Challenges for Amazon

Amazon developed very quickly into a major player in the online retail market, yet challenges
remained:

1. From its inception, Amazon was not required to collect state or local sales or use taxes, an
exemption upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. However, in 2012, states began to con- sider
superseding the Supreme Court decision.15 “If the states were to prevail, Amazon would be
forced to collect sales and use tax, creating administrative burdens for it, and putting it at a
competitive disadvantage if similar obligations are not imposed on all of its online competitors,
potentially decreasing its future sales.”16 Massachusetts and other states were motivated both by
the desire (to tap into new sources of revenues for their state budgets and to protect local
retailers.

In 2012, reports had it that Amazon was making deals to collect sales tax in all 50 states, so that
they could open warehouses near population centers and provide same-day deliv- ery, a major
shift in its business model that would ratchet up competition with big box stores like Best Buy
and Target as well as local retailers. However, there were no guar- antees of the profitability of
same-day delivery, given the added warehouse and delivery costs.

2. With the new social trend of “buying local,” Amazon faced the threat of some regular
consumers preferring to buy from their local stores rather than from an online retailer.17

3. Amazon always had to grapple with the threat of customer preference for instant gratifi-
cation, the customer’s desire to get a product immediately in the store, rather than waiting
several days for the product to be shipped to them.

4. Breaches of security from outside parties trying to gain access to its information or data were a
continual threat for Amazon.18 As of 2012, Amazon had systems and processes in place that
were designed to counter such attempts; however, failure to maintain these systems or processes
could be detrimental to the operations of the company.

5. As more media products were sold in digital formats, Amazon’s relatively low-cost phys- ical
warehouses and distribution capabilities no longer provided the same competitive advantages. In
addition, Amazon had felt that its worldwide free shipping offers and Amazon Prime were
effective worldwide marketing tools, and intended to offer them indefinitely, yet it began to
suffer from soaring shipping expenses cutting into profits. In quarter three of 2011, Amazon’s
shipping fees generated $360 million in revenue, which was dwarfed by $918 million in shipping
expenses.
 6. Amazon had to contend with absorbing losses from its unsuccessful ventures such as its A9
search engine, Amazon Auctions, and Unbox, Amazon’s original video-on-demand service.

7. Recent hires from Microsoft, Robert Williams, former senior program manager, and Brandon
Watson, head of Windows Phone development prompted speculation that Amazon was
developing a smartphone, possibly a Kindle-branded device. Bloomberg reported that Amazon
had gone so far as to strike a manufacturing deal with Foxconn, the controversial Taiwanese
company responsible for assembling Apple’s iPhone and Google Android devices. Amazon has
not commented on the reports. A smartphone would have given Amazon another mobile device
to sell, but some analysts felt it wouldn’t have made sense for Amazon to enter into the already
crowded smartphone arena. “Since tablets skew more heavily toward media consumption than
smartphones, they are a natural fit for Amazon’s commerce and media platform,” said Baird &
Co. analyst Colin Sebastian, in a research note. “In contrast, smartphones require specialized

CASE 9 Amazon.com, Inc. 469

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CASE 9

Amazon.com, Inc.

native apps (e.g., maps, voice, search, e-mail) that would be costly for Amazon to replicate.”
Sebastian also noted that hardware is a low-margin business. Amazon’s Kindle Fire sold for
$199, a price that some analysts believed was below cost, suggest- ing Amazon hoped the Kindle
Fire would more than pay for itself by boosting sales of e-books and other digital content. Thus,
by 2012 Amazon had proved itself as a retail giant, yet as with any vibrant company, faced
continual challenges, particularly regard- ing the overarching questions of whether to spend its
money developing media products such as the Kindle Smartphone, or to stick with its strengths
as an online retailer, perhaps acquiring more holdings such as Zappos, and pushing for same-day
delivery despite the added cost to compete with other online retailers, and with the big box stores
as well.

In 2012, Amazon was at a crossroads. It needed to decide if it should invest in the infra- structure
for same-day delivery, and take on local retailers, or invest in high-technology and compete at a
deeper level with Sony, Apple, and Samsung.

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notes

1. Chaffey, D. Amazon.com Case Study. http://www.davechaffey .com/E-commerce-Internet-

marketing-case-studies/ Amazon-case-study/

2. Mind Tools. PEST Analysis – Problem-Solving Training from MindTools.com. Management

Training, Leadership Training and Career Training. Mind Tools Ltd. 12 Dec. 2011.
http://www .mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_09.htm

3. Chaffey, D. Amazon.com Case Study. http://www.davechaffey .com/E-commerce-Internet-

marketing-case-studies/ Amazon-case-study/

4. Marketing Plan. Marketing Strategies of Amazon.com. http://

www.marketingplan.net/amazon-com-marketing-strategies/ 5. Layton, J. How Amazon Works.
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Amazon.com. http://

www.marketingplan.net/amazon-com-marketing-strategies/ 7. Amazon.com. 2010 Annual

Report. April 2011. 8. Marketing Plan. Marketing Strategies of Amazon.com. http://

www.marketingplan.net/amazon-com-marketing-strategies/

Simmonds, Paul. Amazon Strategic Plan. Scribd. Web. 12 Dec. 2011.

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Standard & Poor’s Capital IQ. Amazon.com Inc. Products. Steinberg, B. For Amazon, a Focus
on the New Helps Push Sales of the Old. Advertising Age. Nov. 2011. http://
adage.com/article/special-report-marketer-alist/

marketing-a-list-amazon/230825/

Supply Chain Digest. Logistics News: Amazon.com in Hot Corner after Reports of Sweltering
DC’s.2011, “Urgently” Buys $2.4 Million in Air Conditioners. Sept. 2011. http://
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Tozzi, John. To Beat Recession, Indies Launch Buy-Local Push. Businessweek. Bloomberg L.P.,
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Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Great Firewall of China. 12 Dec. 2011.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Golden_Shield_Project

Yahoo.com. Amazon.com Historical Prices. 2011. http:// finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?

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Yarow, J. Here’s How Much a Unique Visitor Is Worth. Jan. 2011.

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9. Amazon.com. 2010 Annual Report. April 2011. 10. eBay Who We Are. 2011. 10 December
2011 http://www.ebayinc

.com/who 11. Metro Group. Corporate Srategy. 2011. http://www.metrogroup

.de/internet/site/metrogroup/node/10781/Len/index.html 12. AMAZON.COM, INC., FORM 10-

K, For the Fiscal Year Ended December 31, 2006, page 6. http://www.sec.gov/

Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312507034081/d10k.htm 13. Amazon.com. Amazon

Annual Meeting of Shareholders Pre- sentation (10Q). June 2011. http://phx.corporate-
ir.net/phoenix
.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-presentations 14. Amazon.com. 2010 Annual Report. April 2011. 15.
Amazon.com. 2010 Annual Report. Page 13–14. April 2011. 16. Amazon.com. 2010 Annual
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Push. Bloomberg’s Businessweek. Bloomberg L.P., February

2009.http://www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/feb2009/ sb20090226_752622.htm

18. Amazon.com. 2010 Annual Report. Page 15. April 2011.

CASE 9 Amazon.com, Inc. 471

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