Introduction The power and utility of the internet is common knowledge to literate people. It has fundamentally shifted the economic land scape to such an extent that its era is dubbed the new economy (Turban et e, 2011l). At the heart of this new economy is e-commerce. E-commerce is simply doing business online. Amongst the companies at the pinnacle of the new economy and more specifically e-commerce is Amazon. Amazon was by far the greatest e-commerce performer in terms of revenue in 2013 as reported by (Wireless News, 2014). One of the company’s many accolades is that it has the seventh most visited website in the world (alexa, 2015). Compared to its competitors, meaning companies that are offering similar services, it is number one. The position occupied by Amazon in the market warrants a study of the company and its businesses model. …show more content…
As is typically the case with ICT start-ups (the likes of Facebook and Apple) the company started operating from a garage. The idea was essentially to replace the brick and mortar book store with an electronic one. The value proposition of this model has the capabilities and advantages of the internet embedded in it. To note but a few advantages of this business model, cost to the customer is low, distance and shopping hours are no longer a restriction to customers. In just a month of its establishment Amazon was selling books to all 50 states of the US and Canada. From the onset the company had ambitions of being an “everything store” (funding universe, 2004). Over the years Amazon increased its offerings to include DVDs, electronics, furniture and other consumer goods (Amazon.com, 2015). The product range increase was accompanied by a series of acquisitions. Oliva et al (2003) describes Amazon to be using a get big fast (GBF) strategy which is premised on keeping prices low while expanding market