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AMAZONEVERYTHING2AMAZON EVERYTHING“Amazon is in the middle of an ambitious multiyear shift from a store selling one product at a time to a full-fledged ecosystem. Amazon wants to be so deeply embedded in a customers life that buying happens as naturally as breathing, and nearly as often.” says David Streitfeld, The New York Times.Its hard to overestimate the size and influence of Amazon. The company has gone way beyond its role as a global e-commerce giant and has evolved into an entertainment, data, logistics and lifestyle powerhouse, and its offering is more diverse and ambidextrous than ever. In less than 25 years, Amazon has gone from being an online bookseller to a behemoth worth over $350 billionmore than Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Nordstrom, Kohls, JC Penney, Sears and Macys put together. By fully integrating with consumer lives, Amazon has transformed our shopping expectations. Free delivery is now a basic standard. And the ability to deliver within two hours has become a necessity, not a luxury, because of Amazon Prime Nowfree to customers who subscribe to the Prime service. While other companies struggle to catch up, it AMAZON EVERYTHINGINTRODUCTION3AMAZON EVERYTHINGtakes little time for Amazons new initiatives and gambles to become an indispensable part of consumer lives; according to founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, “tens of millions” of Amazon Echo voice-controlled devices have been sold since their introduction just over three years ago. The friendly voice of its Alexa personal assistant has normalized spoken commerce and hyper-personalized recommendations, with the Echo Look “style assistant” the latest development. Amazon is also transforming the consumer relationship with brands by launching its own versions of consumer favorites. Some are explicitly labeled as such, including AmazonBasics, a value range of everyday items including batteries, computer accessories and pet food, and Amazon Elements, a premium range of vitamins and supplements with an emphasis on transparency. Other Amazon products are less obvious. Mama Bear is Amazons line of diapers, launched in 2017, Presto! offers cleaning products, while Wickedly Prime is a range of gourmet snacks and beverages. More recently, the company has been introducing a raft of premium private labels that look and feel like aspirational brands, competing on price and desirability in the athleisure, beauty and personal care sectors. Examples include Dear Drew, Drew Barrymores fashion and jewelry line, fitness labels Peak Velocity and Goodsport, and homeware line Stone & Beam.By spreading its focus across all price points, Amazon is positioning itself as a competitor to some of the best-loved brands on shop shelves. And it doesnt stop there. Banking, shipping, services, health, education and more are on the horizon.INTRODUCTIONINTRODUCTION AMAZON EVERYTHING 4Amazon wants to be so deeply embedded in a customers life that buying happens as naturally as breathing.DAVID STREITFELDTHE NEW YORK TIMES5AMAZON EVERYTHINGThe rise and riseAmazon has come along way since selling its first book in 1995. But the company has always thought big. Its name was chosen for the sheer scale it conjured up (and because it would do well in alphabetical rankings). From the beginning, size was what excited Bezos. “I came across the fact that Web usage was growing at 2,300% per year. Id never seen or heard of anything that grew that fast, and the idea of building an online bookstore with millions of titlessomething that simply couldnt exist in the physical worldwas very exciting to me,” he said in an address to the class of 2010 at Princeton, his alma mater. The site launched with the bombastic tagline “Earths Biggest Bookstore” but in truth, books were only ever a starting point; Bezos originally compiled a list of 20 possible products to sell, including software, CDs and videos.In his book The Know-It-Alls: The Rise of Silicon Valley as a Political Powerhouse and Social Wrecking Ball, Noam Cohen compares and contrasts Amazon with two other companies who emerged at the same time: Craigslist and eBay. While these two examples grew organically, almost accidentally, Amazon was calculated from the very beginning. “The intention was always to become the one-stop for all online commerce. Nothing accidental about its path to greatness,” wrote Cohen. “First books, then everything else.”INTRODUCTION6AMAZON EVERYTHINGEverything else came swiftly. Amazon went public in 1997, starting selling music and DVDs in 1998, expanded into toys and electronics in 1999, and reworked its logo in 2000 to the familiar arrow pointing from A to Z. The “everything store” had arrived.But retail is only part of the story. Today Amazon is also a publisher, a production company, a consumer electronics manufacturer, and a leader in cloud services. And its clear that Amazon has even larger targets in its sights. In the first weeks of 2018 alone reports emerged that Amazon would next create its own AI chips, challenging the dominance of Intel, launch its own B2B shipping service to rival UPS and FedEx, and revolutionize the United States healthcare market. 2018 is also the year Amazon also chooses its new headquarters, challenges Google and Facebooks dominance in advertising, and, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley, might become a $1 trillion company. Just how big will Amazon become? Possibly too big2018 may also be the year that the company becomes a target. President Trump has made his thoughts clear, in a series of tweets and interviews, telling Fox News that Bezos had “a huge antitrust problem because hes controlling so much, Amazon is controlling so much of what they are doing.”J. Walter Thompsons Innovation Group has been charting Amazons impact on consumer behavior and expectations since 2015. Heres whats now and perhaps next in Amazons expanding universe.INTRODUCTION88% of US consumers aged between 1834 prefer to shop at Amazon than any other online retailers.SONARTMAfter a shaky start, Amazon quietly became a force in fashion in 2017. Cowen & Co predicts that Amazon will sell $28 billion worth of clothing in 2018, and that by 2021, will reach $62 billion in annual clothing sales.The company has taken a number of approaches. In late 2017, Amazon partnered with Calvin Klein, offering exclusive styles through pop-up stores in New York City and Los Angeles, as well as online. In the words of Phil Masiello, founder and CEO of Hound Dog Digital Marketing Agency, “This move sends a clear signal to department stores, that Amazon is far more important to a brands growth than traditional retail.”At the same time, Amazon also launched its first celebrity collaboration, teaming up with Drew Barrymore on the Dear Drew lifestyle and fashion brand. Barrymore had previously worked with Walmart on a cosmetics range, Flower Beauty.Meanwhile, Amazons private-label brands such as Lark & Ro, Ella Moon and Goodthreads went from strength to strength, helped by the launch AMAZONS MOVE INTO FASHION ISNT JUST A FADAMAZONS MOVE INTO FASHION ISNT JUST A FAD AMAZON EVERYTHING 7of Prime Wardrobe in June 2017, allowing customers to try on items at home before paying, and return them for free. Oprah Winfrey ended the year by including a Lark & Ro cashmere sweater on her list of Oprahs Favorite Things. A January 2018 Financial Times article headlined “Now Amazon is disrupting fashion retail, too” pointed out the benefits of such private-label brands, as they give Amazon total control. “As it stands, the company cant control which brands decide to sell on its website, or stop them from leaving,” the article observed.Why its interesting: Through a mix of exclusive partnerships with established brands and its own labels, Amazon is finally mastering fashion.AMAZONS MOVE INTO FASHION ISNT JUST A FAD 8AMAZON EVERYTHING9AMAZON EVERYTHINGIn 2017, Amazon moved into new territories.In the Middle East, the company bought its way into the market, acquiring e-commerce site Souq for $580 million in cash.In India, Amazon has ramped up its efforts against the dominant Flipkart, including taking a 5% stake in bricks-and-mortar chain Shoppers Stop and opening new distribution centers for Amazon Now, its app for same-day delivery of essentials. The country has great potential for Amazon; Morgan Stanley has estimated that online retail in India will grow to $200 billion by 2026, a 1,200% increase from 2016. In December 2017, the company also launched in Australia. At least one potential customer who was already loyal to the US site was unimpressed, calling the launch “weirdly underwhelming.” He told the Sydney Morning Herald, “Just skimming through the site, I cant see any prices that impress me. I could find cheaper items on other sitesmaybe even for half the price.”One issue is that so far Amazon has opened just one fulfillment center in Australia. Kim Do, a senior industry analyst at IbisWorld, pointed out that Amazons success in Australia wasnt guaranteed. “The AMAZONS GLOBAL EXPANSIONbiggest challenge will be adapting to the Australian market in terms of distribution,” she said. “Our population is very dispersed, unlike the home market in the United States, where distribution costs are much lower.”While Amazon pushes into new markets, it may face increased competition in established ones. In February 2018, Richard Liu, the founder and CEO of Chinese e-commerce giant JD, told the Financial Times that the company would be launching in France, the United Kingdom and Germany over the next few years and intended half of the companys profits to come from outside China within a decade. Why its interesting: As Amazon pushes into new markets, it faces increased competition in areas where it dominates.AMAZONS GLOBAL EXPANSION10AMAZON EVERYTHINGAMAZONS GLOBAL EXPANSIONCAUSMXBRAUSCNINUKDECZITPOLFRESSKJPGLOBAL MARKETPLACESFULFILLMENT CENTERS *AS OF FEBRUARY 2018SOURCE: AMAZON INVESTOR RELATIONSBUYING CUSTOMERS IN MORE THANCOUNTRIESLISTING CATEGORIESGLOBALLYAMAZON MOVES INTO SHIPPINGAMAZON MOVES INTO SHIPPING 11AMAZON EVERYTHINGIn February 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon was ready to launch Shipping with Amazon, directly competing with UPS and FedEx.While Amazon already handles millions of packages every day, Shipping with Amazon would also deliver for other businesses. The new service is intended to start small, being initially offered only to Amazons third-party sellers and, at least to begin with, only in Los Angeles. Shipping with Amazon aims to undercut established firms by using free space on its trucks. There is a question mark over whether Amazon would be able to expand its new shipping service nationally, or even internationally. One analyst, Rick Paterson at Loop Capital Markets, wrote that “spending tens of billions over two or three decades to build a business while ruining industry pricing and returns on capital in the process just isnt smart, particularly for Amazon.”Theres no room for complacency, though. Shortly after details of Shipping with Amazon emerged, Sren Skou, CEO of shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk, told Bloomberg that Amazon could be a threat. “If we dont do our job well, then theres no doubt that big, strong companies like Amazon will look into whether they can do better themselves,” he observed.Why its interesting: Amazons tentative move into shipping is enough to worry the industrys biggest names. 12AMAZON EVERYTHINGxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxAMAZON RIVALLING YOUTUBE?AMAZON RIVALLING YOUTUBE?Much of what Amazon does is shrouded in mystery. A look at Amazons filings with the United States Patent and Trademark Office can offer insights, however. In December 2017, Amazon filed trademarks for the terms “Amazon Tube” and “Open Tube.” The applications referred to a software and mobile application for the streaming and downloading of “electronic works” via mobile phones and computers. Both the names and description bear an obvious resemblance to YouTube and could mark a further battle between Amazon and Google, parent company of YouTube. The sparring began when Amazon refused to sell Google products like the Echo rival Google Home on its e-commerce site. Google retaliated by no longer supporting YouTube on Amazons Fire TV.Amazon already has a wealth of original and acquired content through its Prime Video offering so Amazon Tube could simply be a new way of reaching a new audience, especially those without a Prime membership. But given YouTubes ongoing problems with extreme content and pressure on advertisers to distance themselves from the platform, this could be a moment for Amazon to create a better system.Why its interesting: This could mark the first real challenge to Googles dominance and cement Amazons reputation as a content provider.AMAZON RIVALLING YOUTUBE? 13AMAZON EVERYTHINGWHO IS WINNING THE HOME-DEVICE BATTLE? WHO IS WINNING THE HOME-DEVICE BATTLE?14AMAZON EVERYTHINGAmazon is also competing with Google over home devices. Comparing the Amazon Echo range with the Google Home line, Business Insider UK detected a clear winner in January 2018: “Amazon is way ahead of the game when it comes to voice-powered home devices.”An early entrant to the market, Amazon has been quick to offer a diverse range, including the budget-priced Amazon Echo, the portable and rechargeable Amazon Tap, Echo Show, which has a screen to enable video calling, and the fashion-focused Echo Look, which features a hands-free camera and style assistant.A January 2018 Consumer Intelligence Research Partners report also puts Amazon ahead, estimating that Amazon has sold 31 million units compared to Google Homes 14 million. However, Google is gaining ground, with particularly strong 2017 holiday sales. A new challenger is also emerging. Despite introducing the voice-activated assistant Siri six years ago, Apple has been slow to launch its WHO IS WINNING THE HOME-DEVICE BATTLE?15AMAZON EVERYTHINGown home device. In February 2018 the Apple HomePod finally arrived. Positioned more as a speaker than a home assistant, the HomePod is also considerably more expensive, costing $349 compared to Amazons Echo Plus at $149. Left behind is Microsoft. Its Cortana-powered speaker launched in late 2017 and was on offer at half price by February 2018. Why its interesting: Amazon has established itself as a dominant player, but faces challengers. Amazon Echo and Echo Look are part of a rising shift in consumer behavior when it comes to channels. Here verbal, intuitive and interactive are becoming the norm. And visual recognition is increasingly integrated. See our study on the Internet of Eyes and Ears.WHO IS WINNING THE HOME-DEVICE BATTLE?16AMAZON EVERYTHING17AMAZON EVERYTHINGAMAZONS HEALTHCARE AMBITIONSAmazons long-awaited move into healthcare raises more questions than it answers. In January 2018 Amazon announced tha
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