Show:
Company Structure
Business Ventures
Basically the Basics
The Nitty Gritty
100
Who is Amazon's Chief Executive?
Jeffery P. Bezos
100
What is the name of the service Amazon has that offers cheap space on disk drives?
What is "Simple Storage." Amazon already has space to offer this service however, it would be extremely expensive for a small business to obtain on their own. It costs 15 cents per gigabyte per month.
100
True or False? Amazons services such as offering warehouse space and data storage are very expensive for Amazon?
FALSE. The costs are very low since Amazon already has the capacity and technologies to offer the service. However, they are currently bringing in minimal revenue. Bezos argues that "our seeds we plant often take years to be profitable."
100
True or False? Amazon is the world's second largest online store.
FALSE. Amazon is the world's LARGEST online store.
200
What are "Pizza Teams?"
"Pizza Teams" are small teams of 5-8 people which can easily and quickly come up with new ideas and implement new website features. They can also be fed by only 2 large pizza's....unless the Pizza's are "TERMINATOR" pizzas from Gumby's, in which case you would only need 1.
200
What service costs customers 45 cents per square foot per month?
What is "Fulfillment" warehouse space. Businesses can send inventory to Amazon warehouses, when customer places an order a signal gets sent to Amazon and they are ship it to the customers. The small businesses do not need expensive servers, software, or garages full of stuff. This saves businesses money and gets their products to market faster.
200
Who specifically does Amazon target for their technical and logistical services?
Amazon primarily targets start-ups and small business although they do have some big name clients.
200
How can Amazon's brand image enhance their bargaining power?
Amazon can use their well-known brand image to bargain on rates in all aspects of their supply chain and as well on their commission rates. They are kind of like the Wal-Mart of the internet. Everyone wants to be in their online store...but at what cost?
300
Despite the high amounts of revenues, what is a reason for low profits which Amazon investors are NOT happy about?
Profits are low due to spending on new technology, hiring engineers and web developers, and money lost on free-shipping offers which were put in place to compete with other online retailers.
300
What is the name of one of Amazon's first successful ventures? (HINT: It is a raw computing power that can be tapped on demand, just like electricity.)
What is "Elastic Compute Cloud." It's computing power costs 10 cents per hour
300
Amazon normally uses 10% of its operation space. What is a benefit of Amazon operating at a higher capacity?
The more businesses that participate in Amazon's services= Amazon operating at a higher capacity= operate with great efficiency= ability to offer more products/greater selection for consumers= more products shipper= Amazon can cut better deals with shippers
300
What is a venture that was not a success for Amazon?
-Amazon’s A9.com search engine never took off -Amazon Unbox Video downloading service (mimicking YouTube) never took off
400
Out of 27 analysts, how many gave Amazon under-performance scores?
What is 11 analysts...although they are not in fear of the company collapsing at all. They are mostly just concerned about competitors.
400
What Amazon service provides online piece-work that computers cannot accurately do and charges 10% commission?
What is called "Amazon Mechanical Turk."
400
What is "Scanbuy"?
Scanbuy allows people to use their cell phones to compare store prices with prices on the Amazon website. Amazon is trying to compete with websites that are personalized/customized to shoppers with this service.
400
What does Amazon call the people hired to do things like recognizing and sorting images, or choosing which keywords are more attractive than others?
What is "Turkers." They are paid 1-2 cents per photo.