Fast Company (December 24)
Despite fears of a brick-and-mortar retail apocalypse, many retailers “are flourishing in the age of Amazon. After all, more than 90% of retail sales still happen in the real world, and as relentless as Bezos is, it’s not likely he’ll swallow up all of brick-and-mortar on his own. The truth is that the bigger Amazon gets, the more opportunity it creates for fresh, local alternatives. The more Amazon pushes robot-powered efficiency, the more space there is for warm and individualized service.”
Tags: Amazon, Bezos, Brick-and-mortar, Efficiency, Flourishing, Fresh, Local, Retailers, Service
Fortune (June 19)
Amazon’s all-time high stock price put founder Jeff Bezos ”about $4 billion away from overtaking Gates, who is worth about $90 billion…. Since Bezos net worth is largely tied to his 78.9 million shares of Amazon, becoming the world’s richest person is completely within the realm of possibility. After all, his net worth has already shot up by $19.3 billion in the last six months thanks to strong earnings and growing investor confidence in the economy, sending Amazon’s stock 35% higher since the start of the year.”
Tags: Amazon, Bezos, Confidence, Earnings, Economy, Gates, Investor, Net worth, Stock price, World's richest
Financial Times (May 4)
EU policy makers’ now have their “sights have fixed upon ‘Gafa’ — the acronym used to denote Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.” The regulators do not hate technology. “They understand that digital services invigorate the economy. But…. Europe has recently felt itself to be more on the losing side; however measured, not one of the world’s largest internet companies is European.”
Tags: Amazon, Apple, Digital services, Economy, EU, Facebook, Gafa, Google, Technology
Time (May 19)
“It was bound to happen, but no one really thought it’d happen this fast.” Amazon announced that it is now selling more e-books than paperbacks and hardcovers combined. Amazon began marketing Kindle e-books books less than four years ago, and is now selling roughly 105 Kindle books for every 100 print versions.
Tags: Amazon, E-books, Hardcovers, Kindle, Paperbacks, Print
Wall Street Journal (August 8)
With 720 stores, Barnes & Nobel is the largest bricks and mortar book seller in the U.S., yet valued at less than $1 billion. In comparison, Amazon’s market cap exceeds $55 billion. Barnes & Noble is seeking suitors to help turn things around. This marks a tipping point. “Technology has made the physical scale of Barnes & Noble a liability.” EBooks offer enhanced features such as video, audio and interactivity while eBook sellers such as Amazon.com don’t need “retail outlets, inventory, returns, printing or shipping costs.” The age that began with Guttenberg is nearing an end. Today we are turning “new pages in the history of the book, whose final chapters are yet to be written.”
Tags: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, eBook
