The one book (about Amazon) every retailer should read
Bloomberg Businessweek senior writer Brad Stone has authored a new book about Amazon that is a must read for anyone involved in the retail industry – especially Walmart.
In the book, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon,Stone shares details of the company and its leader gleaned from interviews with former and current employees. Bezos did not allow himself to be interviewed for the book. Stone is a San Francisco-based senior writer for Bloomberg Businessweek who also spent time at Newsweek and The New York Times covering e-commerce and the rise of the digital age. The book is especially insightful for Walmart and its trading partners because the company continues to look for ways to unlock the potential of its unique collection of physical assets, brand equity and increasing digital capabilities to drive omnichannel growth.
“It’s easy to forget that until recently, people thought of Amazon primarily as an online bookseller. Today, as it nears its 20th anniversary, it’s the Everything Store, a company with around $75 billion in annual revenue, a $140 billion market value, and few if any discernible limits to its growth,” according to a excerpt in which some of Bezos’ personality traits will sound eerily familiar to those of Walmart founder Sam Walton. “In the past few months alone, it launched a marketplace in India, opened a website to sell high-end art, introduced another Kindle reading device and three tablet computers, made plans to announce a set-top box for televisions, and funded the pilot episodes of more than a dozen TV shows. Amazon’s marketplace hosts the storefronts of countless smaller retailers; Amazon Web Services handles the computer infrastructure of thousands of technology companies, universities, and government agencies.”
The book is available on Amazon.com beginning October 15, which ironically enough, is the same day when Walmart hosts its annual meeting with financial analysts and where ecommerce is sure to be a focal point. Click here to readthe excerpt.