How Amazon.com Stays On Top in a Global Market

I'm not the biggest fan of Amazon.com, though if you're a regular you'll have noticed a lot of links to Amazon.com on this site. Is there some hypocrisy involved? Not really; it seems that the majority of people prefer shopping through Amazon.com. I used to give more options, and probably will be going back to doing so in the future, but when it comes to buying and selling on the internet - there is no doubt that Amazon.com is an 800lb gorilla that the public continues to feed bananas to.

How does Amazon.com do it? Well, there's the marketing of course - but there's also the adding of value for literate people around the world (with, I have heard, exceptions). If you visit their site, they track what you've expressed interest in through surfing around, and allow you to pick books that you like based on what other people have bought. They go that extra mile to help you get what you want, and that apparently speaks higher to people than most other things.

Consider Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher. Amazon.com is spending a lot of money to get Bill Mahrer on a video feed, and I somehow doubt that it was goodwill alone that got get Stephen King interviewed by Bill Mahrer.

Love them or hate them, Amazon.com is doing a lot to assure that they retain their customers as well as attract new customers online. They are spending a lot of money doing it, but the money isn't what impresses me... it's the ability to continue coming up with new ideas that are user-centric and yet profit Amazon.com. And when it comes to such things, well... it's worth keeping an eye on the leaders, and more important to understand the mindset that allows the creation of such things than to simply mimic.

Mimicry is for second place. I find it difficult to believe that Amazon.com is the only imaginative business in it's circle of competition. Then again, maybe it's because Amazon.com takes risks. I don't know, but they are always interesting to keep an eye on.

Will Amazon.com continue it's hold? What about countries that cannot receive books from Amazon.com, as I hear is the case in Suriname? What then? Will competition arise from the countries outside of the Amazon.com market? Will the global business community actually give Amazon.com a run for their money?

I would hope so.