What makes Amazon work as one of the largest e commerce platform?

The year was 1994 and Jeff Bezos, at the age of 30, realised internet and the world wide web was slowly taking over different parts of the world. Contemplating the idea of beginning his own e commerce firm, Bezos realised his true calling when statistics showed him web usage was growing by 2,300 % in the year 2000. He quit his job and started Amazon by making a list of 20 products he could potentially sell on the internet.

What started off as an idea in a garage bloomed. Bezos’s first investment came from his parents, who put a large sum of money to turn his dream into reality. Back in the day, Amazon was not what it is today. It was primarily an offline store, with a focus on selling rare and famous books! The first book was incidentally sold from Bezos’s garage!

Amazon.com launched its online bookselling site at a time when bookstore chains such as Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks and Crown Books were familiar storefronts in American shopping malls. Promoting itself as “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore,” Amazon opened for business in July 1995, using major book distributors and wholesalers to rapidly fill its orders.

Back in the beginning, Amazon was sorely understaffed. Bezos’s expected his employees to work round the clock, punching in at least 60 hours a week! In fact, one of his employees was so busy, he forgot he had a car. He realised his faux pas when his email was flooded with tickets and notices!

Every employee had to take a graveyard shift in the fulfillment centers to meet orders. They would bring their friends and family and would often sleep in their cars before going to work the next day. It was only when Bezos realised the severity of the situation that he decided to hire seasonal employees who could work all through the year.

In the early 2000s, Jeff Wilke, Amazon’s operations manager, would let any person or team who accomplished a significant goal close their eyes, lean back and yell into the phone at him at the top of their lungs. Wilke told Brad Stone that some of the primal screams nearly blew out his speakers.

In the early days, it was difficult for the team to see how they could push beyond the $ 5 million mark. Once it did, Bezos made sure they clocked in at least one major achievement through the year and now, even so many years after, Amazon remains as one of the largest e commerce platforms in the world!