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Amazon.com, 2021
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Publication Date: August 03, 2015
Industry: Fabrication and manufacturing
Industry: Advertising industry
Industry: Retail and consumer goods
Source: Harvard Business School
In February 2021, Amazon announced 2020 operating profits of $22,899 million, up from $2,233 million in 2015, on sales of $386 billion, up from $107 billion five years earlier (see Exhibit 1). The shareholders expressed their satisfaction (see Exhibit 2), but not all were happy with Amazon's meteoric rise. Many traditional retailers in the United States were going bankrupt, while major competitors such as Walmart and Best Buy were forced to invest aggressively in online retailing to prevent their market share from eroding. Every retail sector appeared to be under threat, fueling anxieties that Amazon and America's other tech giants were becoming too big and powerful. These anxieties were only exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, during which Amazon grew rapidly, while most traditional retailers foundered. Amazon's increasingly clear ambitions in healthcare and autonomous vehicles were also causing concern. In early 2021, Amazon was drawing criticism from across the political spectrum in the United States, with calls for it to be broken up. The European Union was also investigating its practices. Meanwhile, on February 2, 2021, Amazon reported that company founder and CEO Jeff Bezos would step down from his role and become executive chairman of the board. Andy Jassy, the leader of Amazon Web Services (AWS) would become the new CEO. How would Jassy navigate the many challenges to come and continue Amazon's record of success?
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Case Study: Should a Direct-to-Consumer Company Start Selling on Amazon?
By: Thales S. Teixeira
An e-bike maker weighs the trade-offs.
- Length: 2067 word count
- Publication Date: Dec 19, 2018
- Discipline: Sales
- Product #: H04PPU-PDF-ENG
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Dec 19, 2018
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- November 2017
- Teaching Note
- HBS Case Collection
Amazon.com, 2016
- Format: Print
- | Language: English
- | Pages: 11
Related Work
- Faculty Research
- Amazon.com, 2016 By: John R. Wells and Gabriel Ellsworth
COMMENTS
A case study of Amazon's growth, challenges and leadership changes in 2021. The case examines Amazon's business model, strategy, competition, regulation and social impact in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the tech industry.
In February 2021, Amazon announced 2020 operating profits of $22,899 million, up from $2,233 million in 2015, on sales of $386 billion, up from $107 billion five years earlier (see Exhibit 1). The shareholders expressed their satisfaction (see Exhibit 2), but not all were happy with Amazon's meteoric rise. Many traditional retailers in the United States were going bankrupt, while major ...
HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR On Strategy, case studies and conversations with the world's top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock new ways of doing business. Amazon ...
On 30 May 2017, Amazon shares traded at a record high - above $1,000 - surpassing the share price of Google parent Alphabet. Started as an online bookstore 22 years earlier, Amazon has achieved uninterrupted growth by becoming the largest internet bookstore, the largest online marketplace, a media company, and the most successful IT service provider. Amazon recently expanded into the bricks ...
Research Workshop at the Harvard Business School, IO Workshop at the University of Oklahoma, the Wharton Technology and Innovation Conference, the 13th International Industrial Organization Conference, ... Using data from Amazon.com to study Amazon's entry pattern into third-party sellers' product spaces, we find that Amazon is more
Thales S. Teixeira is the Lumry Family Associate Professor at Harvard Business School. He is the author of Unlocking the Customer Value Chain: How Decoupling Drives Consumer Disruption (Currency ...
The case is set in November 2019, and the protagonist is Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon.com. From humble beginnings as an online book retailer, Jeff Bezos has built Amazon into one of the most valuable companies globally with a market cap of some $900 billion in 2019. Amazon has continued to diversify by integrating online and brick-and-mortar retail, hardware and software, products and ...
Jeff Bezos shares his views on innovation, risk-taking, and failure in business. He cites Amazon Web Services as an example of how to be nimble and create an edge in the cloud computing market.
Source: Harvard Business School In February 2021, Amazon announced 2020 operating profits of $22,899 million, up from $2,233 million in 2015, on sales of $386 billion, up from $107 billion five years earlier (see Exhibit 1).
Gupta, Sunil, and Margaret L. Rodriguez. "Amazon in 2024." Harvard Business School Case 514-025, August 2013. (Revised July 2024.)
By early 2018, Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. (Amazon), one of the world's most valuable companies and the largest online retailer in the world, had grown dramatically since its beginnings in 1994. The company that had started as an online bookseller now sold merchandise and digital content in more than 30 categories, including electronics, clothing, books, furniture, and streaming music and ...
In this fictional case study, the head of marketing at a young e-bike maker thinks through the pros and cons of selling on Amazon and of sticking with a direct-to-consumer strategy, and considers the long-term implications of each for his brand. For teaching purposes, this is the case-only version of the HBR case study.
Collis, David, Andy Wu, Rembrand Koning, and Huaiyi CiCi Sun. "Walmart Inc. takes on Amazon.com." Harvard Business School Case 718-481, January 2018. (Revised October 2021 ...
Explore real-world scenarios from Harvard Business School to solve your toughest work problems. Browse case studies by topic, theme, or date, and learn from global experts and leaders.
Case Study: Should a Direct-to-Consumer Company Start Selling on Amazon? ... Length: 2067 word count; Publication Date: Dec 19, 2018; Discipline: Sales; Product #: H04PPU-PDF-ENG; What's included: Same page, Educator Copy; $4.50 per student. degree granting course. $7.95 per student. ... Harvard Business Review Digital Article. Product ...
Harvard Business Review; Initiatives; News; Recruit; Map / Directions; Faculty & Research. ... Amazon was one of the first entrants in e-commerce. Under the leadership of founder Jeff Bezos, Amazon had expanded beyond books to manufacturing and selling a wide range of products and services globally. ... Harvard Business School Case 421-008 ...
Business Review while at Harvard University (Coyne, 1996; Porter, 1979). 5.1 Industry Analysis of Amazon The five forces are threat of substitutes, bargaining power of buyers, threat of ne w
Find over 50,000+ cases from HBS and other leading business schools to teach and learn with real-world scenarios. Explore different types of cases, browse by discipline, and access resources for case teaching and analysis.
But does Amazon.com's strategy make sense? Critics worry that Bezos may be stretching the Amazon.com brand too far instead of focusing on a few retail categories. Bezos sees the opportunity to dominate various retail categories online--leveraging off its base of 16.9 million customers--before the brick-and-mortar retailers do.
Wells, John R., and Gabriel Ellsworth. "Amazon.com, 2016." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 718-441, November 2017.