I was involved in an email thread recently where the following question was posed: "In your opinion, what are the top 5 'great' companies?" I hadn't considered the question before, but I was a little surprised when Amazon.com popped into my head without evening thinking about it. I had to think for a moment to come up with the other 4. I didn't have to think too hard to come up with a couple more, but I was still surprised at how quickly and naturally Amazon.com came to mind.
I thought for a bit about why Amazon was so natural a choice for me, and I realized it goes way back for me. I have always loved reading books. These days, I focus mainly on science, technology, software, and the business of software, but I read some fiction as well. I have always loved popping into a brick-and-mortar bookstore and look around for a while.
When Amazon was first launched, I was an old school book buyer. I would go into a store, peruse the books on the shelves, read through the table of contents, and then scan a couple of chapters to gauge the quality of the book. Once I found a book I liked, I would go home and order it on Amazon. It felt a little dirty at first, but the savings at Amazon were compelling. Still, it felt a little dirty.
As Amazon continued to improve, I clicked that lever again, and again, and again. Like Skinner's rats, I was being conditioned to depend on that sugary taste that made me feel good. Every experience with Amazon was perfect. Click. Every experience with Amazon got even better. Click.
As I used Amazon more and more, and as their site became more and more popular, I began depending heavily on their recommendations and reviews. While these services improved, Amazon's client base began to grow substantially, which further improved the recommendations and reviews. Before long, I realized my habit of needing to see and touch a book before buying it had slowly faded to the point where I was depending solely on reviews of books. I also found that Amazon's recommendations were suggesting many of the books I ended up purchasing.
Fast forward to today. Amazon is no longer just a book seller. It is not longer even just an online retailer. Amazon has built a set of online cloud services that give common developers amazing scalability and reliability at an astonishingly low price. Start-ups all over the country are using AWS to completely build their online applications.
Here are some of the reasons I love my Amazon:
Free Shipping
Well, not totally free. I am a subscriber to Amazon Prime, meaning 95% of what I order comes to me with 2 shipping for free. For customers who don't subscribe to Amazon Prime, Amazon offers Super Saver Shipping, which means free shipping (ground shipping) for most orders over $25. Because of the number of Amazon distribution centers, I normally get items that are heavily stocked in only 1 day.
No Sales Tax
I live in Tennessee, where we have a rather steep 9.25% sales tax. It may not last forever, but I appreciate no sales tax while it lasts.
Amazon Prime
Amazon Prime is a discount shipping program. For $79 a year, we get overnight shipping for $3.99/item and 2-day shipping for free. You can even share this service with other members of your household.
One-Click Ordering
I never realized how much I dislike going through a traditional online order process. Even with retailers that I have purchased from in the past, there is still lots of information to provide with each order. Amazon provides a way to order an item with a single click. Amazon wasn't the first retailer to offer this service, but they have certainly not stopped innovating. Amazon added a feature where you can select your shipping address and payment method from a single drop-down before you click to order. Try One-Click ordering using Amazon Prime for a great combination.
MP3 Downloads
I love my iPod, but have never liked Apple's DRM terms. When Amazon began selling DRM-free in MP3 format, I never looked back. Songs are either $0.89 or $0.99 and Amazon provides a nice player for samples and a great downloader tool.
Amazon Sales Rank
When I am looking for a new book, or trying to compare two books, I have found the Amazon Sales Rank very revealing in uncovering great books. Find a book on Amazon.com and scroll down to the Product Details section. You will see how well the item is selling in its major category and in its specific category. For example, the book A Thousand Splendid Suns currently shows that it is ranked #30 in Books, #1 in Books/Literature & Fiction/Literary, and #6 in Books/Literature & Fiction/Contemporary. I decided to purchase this book after seeing it ranked #1 in books for a while - I recommend it.
Amazon Marketplace
My wife orders lots of books for our children for school. In many cases, the books she purchases are not new, and are readily available in used form. Amazon does a great job of making such books available in its Amazon Marketplace. The Marketplace allows sellers to sell their items through Amazon. Once you select an item, Amazon will display text such as "129 New and Used Available from $11.89." In many cases, you can get used items in great condition when, even with the flat shipping rate for books, makes them less expensive than the same new item directly from Amazon.
Amazon Web Services
Amazon has built a great set of cloud services known collectively as Amazon Web Services (AWS) that make it easy for developers to build great applications at a very low start-up cost. From its Simple Storage Service (S3), to the Simple Queue Service (SQS), the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), to its SimpleDB, Amazon has made available the building blocks of most enterprise applications in a hosted fashion, allowing developers to develop new products, not new plumbing projects.
I also have a wish list for Amazon:
Search Only Amazon Prime
In some cases, if the item isn't eligible for Amazon Prime, I will probably search for it locally. In such cases, I would really to enable a search option (it would be on by default for me) that would only return items eligible for Amazon Prime when I perform a search.
Better Better Together
I know the guys at Amazon are smart, so I just can't understand why I get some of the items listed in the Better Together area. If you don't know about Better Together, it will offer the opportunity to purchase two items together, occasionally at a discount. The problem is, I have seen too many examples of items listed in Better Together which seem mutually exclusive (two very similar digital cameras), or completely unrelated. I understand that this feature is probably implemented this by observing which items have been purchased together in the past. However, it seems that it used to work better than it does today. I want a better Better Together.
