Last night on Channel 5, a documentary delved deep Inside Amazon from a UK perspective asking the question “How do they really do it? If you sell (or even buy) on Amazon, it’s a fascinating 80 minutes and recommended viewing.
Looking at how Amazon grew from an arbitrage online bookstore to holding stock, expanding into media and to selling pretty much everything, growing from a garage to having warehouses all over the world and eventually ending up with cloud computing being the biggest part of their business, as you would expect the programme isn’t without controversy.
Sections looked at how Amazon were ruthless about crushing their competition and lost money for two decades in the pursuit of growth, as well as accusations of unfair competition with marketplace sellers in their store, how they use our personal data and even record our conversations, and their low corporation tax paid in the UK.
Perhaps most relevant for UK sellers is the sheer scale of Amazon, 15 million of us – a quarter of the UK adult population – shop on Amazon today and Inside Amazon also looks at the launch of Prime which has become the most successful subscription service on the planet.
Sprinkled with insider interviews with the people that worked for Amazon from the start, this is a reasonably balanced programme showcasing the best and the worst of Amazon and if the marketplace is a part of your business then bookmark the programme to watch.
You can watch the programme on demand here.
One Response
Slave labour.