10 Things About Amazon.com That Very Few People Know
Amazon.com
Amazon.com is the world's largest eCommerce website. It is another garage success story that you might know. Founder and the first CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos founded the company back in 1994. Since then, it has changed the consumer market scenario of the world. Amazon.com has operations in 13 countries and ships to more than 100 countries. Amazon sells over 12 million products and it ships more than 66,000 orders per hour, alone in the US. All these stats and information are enough to understand how big Amazon is right now.
Unknown Facts about Amazon.com
Here are some of the facts About Amazon.com that you perhaps don't know.1. Cadabra
The company was first named Cadabra. It was a word like the famous magic word Abracadabra. Later with the suggestion of his lawyer, Bezos changed the name to Amazon after the Amazon River. Without the existence of any sophisticated search engines, websites were listed alphabetically then. So Bezos wanted to keep the name starting with the letter A so that it appears to customers sooner.
2. 70% Risk of Failure
Bezos started the company with the business plan that he wrote on a cross-country drive from New York City to Seattle and a $3,00,000 loan from his parents. He warned the early investors in the company that it has a huge risk (around 70%) of failure or going bankrupt. Three years after the foundation Amazon went public.
3. Took 7 Years To Be Profitable
Amazon.com, Inc is valued at $1.7 trillion now. The last year 2020, it reported a net income of $21.33 billion. But it was not a profit-generating machine at the beginning. In the 27 years of Amazon.com, it has been a profitable company for around 20 years now. For the first seven years, it did not report any profit. The company recorded its first profitable year in 2001.
4. A Decade To Recover From Dot-Com Bubble
Amazon survived The Dot-Com Bubble as a company and many believe this is the hardest thing they ever did. There may be two reasons behind that. Firstly, they successfully raised $672 million in cash convertible bonds to overseas investors. Secondly, it successfully used this infusion of cash to grow its business. Estimated by its share price, It took Amazon to fully recover from the dot com bubble around a decade.
5. Acquired 108 Independent Companies
Amazon Acquired Book Pages back in 1998. It was the first company it Acquired and merged with. This year in June, it Acquired Wickr, as the 108th acquisition. Amazon owns industry-leading companies like Audible, IMDb, and Twitch Interactive. Whole Foods is the largest company Amazon bought by market capital. It paid $13.7 Billion in 2017 for this acquisition.
6. 70 Planes For Shipping Produtcs
Amazon has around 400,000 drivers working for the company, 40,000 semi-trucks, 30,000 vans, and more than 70 planes. In 2020, Amazon delivered 4.2 billion parcel shipments. 1.2 billion of the 2.5 billion packages it shipped outside of the U.S. in 2019. Orders of $25 or more of eligible items qualify for FREE Shipping.
7. 1.3 Million Employees
Globally Amazon employs around 1.3 million people. With around 9,00,000 employees it is the second-largest employer in the U.S. Amazon starting wage for all U.S. employees is $15 an hour. It is hiked to $18 now. The Dock Worker is the lowest paying job position at Amazon at $20,000 annually. The Warehouse Associate is the highest paying job at Amazon at $697,000 annually.
8. Most Expensive Listing Is A Baseball Card
The most expensive thing ever listed on Amazon.com is a A Christy Mathewson HOF portrait baseball card. The item is listed for sale with a price tag of $409,422.59 on March 30, 2019.
9. If You Invested $100!
According to today's price, you will have $212,505.746 if you had invested $100 on Amazon when it became public in 1998. The all-time high Amazon stock closing price was 3731.41 on July 08, 2021.
10. Horse Meat Is Restricted
Though Amazon sells almost everything you can imagine, it has a long list of over 35 Restricted products from different categories that are restricted to sale on the platform including any product that encapsulates raw alcohol, and Products containing horse meat. It is illegal to sell a horse for commercial human consumption.
Our Words
Amazed? You must be. Amazon is one of the largest companies ever built. It has made the impossible possible for years. This is all we have on Amazon for now. Thanks for reading.
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