3. Amazon.com Basics
Amazon.com sells lots and lots of stuff.
You can find beauty supplies, clothing, jewelry,
gourmet food, sporting goods, pet supplies, books,
CDs, DVDs, computers, furniture, toys, garden
supplies, bedding and almost anything else you
might want to buy.
4. Amazon Technology
The massive technology core that keeps Amazon
running is entirely Linux-based. As of 2005,
Amazon has the world's three largest Linux
databases, with a total capacity of 7.8 terabytes
(TB), 18.5 TB and 24.7 TB respectively [ref]. The
central Amazon data warehouse is made up of 28
Hewlett Packard servers, with four CPUs per node,
running Oracle 9i database software.
5. Customer tracking
Customer tracking is an Amazon stronghold.
If you let the Web site stick a cookie on your hard
drive, you'll find yourself on the receiving end of all
sorts of useful features that make your shopping
experience pretty cool, like recommendations based
on past purchases and lists of reviews and guides
written by users who purchased the products you're
looking at.
6. e-commerce
The other main feature that puts Amazon.com on
another level is the multi-leveled e-commerce
strategy it employs. Amazon.com lets almost anyone
sell almost anything using its platform.
You could say that Amazon is simply the ultimate
hub for selling merchandise on the Web, except that
the company has recently added a more extroverted
angle to its strategy.
7. click-through sales
The affiliate program that lets anybody post
Amazon links earn a commission on click-
through sales, there's now a program that
lets those affiliates (Amazon calls them
"associates") build entire Web sites based on
Amazon's p latform.
8. Amazon's Progress
Amazon has four software development centers
worldwide. These units are constantly creating new
features for Amazon.com and developing the
technology to support them.
9. gift-giving
recommendations
Amazon's gift-giving recommendations collect data
on the stuff you buy for other people. For instance, if
you buy a toy train set in December and ship it to
your nephew, Amazon knows you give gifts to a boy
aged four to 10 who lives in Ohio and likes trains.
Amazon.com delivers print catalogs to a limited
number of Amazon customers during the holiday
season.
10. Where's Amazon going?
Amazon Services is building complete e- commerce
solutions for companies that are potential Amazon
competitors, leaving open the possibility that
Amazon will ultimately head in the direction of
technology service over retail sales.
