Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994 as an online marketplace for books, Amazon has since expanded to become the world’s largest online retailer, selling electronics, software, video games, apparel, furniture, food, toys and jewellery. Globally recognised as the world’s first and largest marketplace, as well as one of the biggest technology companies, the Amazon empire has grown to include products such as the Kindle, the Firestick, Amazon Web Services and voice assistant Alexa. Amazon uses the US market as its test-bed for innovations. Significantly, it has even branched out into bricks and mortar, launching its checkout-free Amazon Go stores and Amazon 4-star stores since 2018. It plans to open 3,000 Amazon Go stores by 2021. Amazon also acquired food retailer Whole Foods Market in 2017. Amazon operates dedicated websites for Australia, the UK, France, India, Italy, Canada, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain and Brazil, as well as its original US site. The UK, Germany and Japan are its core global markets, accounting for nearly 80% of its international sales. Due to competition with Chinese titans Alibaba and JD.com, Amazon marketplace withdrew from China earlier this year, but will continue to operate Kindle and Amazon Web Services.
Amazon is laying off 9,000 more employees, chief executive Andy Jassy revealed in a memo to staff.
The number of Amazon workers on strike has topped 500 at its Coventry depot and the GMB union said it expects this to grow as strikers reach out to workers at other warehouses across the UK.
Shoppers have had a tough time of late. Leaping from a global pandemic to an economic crisis has meant many have had to take a closer look at how much they spend and who they’re spending it with. For retailers, that means yet another obstacle course, forcing them to roll up their sleeves and navigate their customers through it.
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