Is Amazon becoming too powerful?

Think about the last time you ordered something online, chances are it came from an Amazon warehouse. This multi-billion dollar company is dominating the online sales world, but are they becoming too much of business power house? Amazon was founded in 1994 by a man named Jeff Bezos, but popularity for this company didn’t happen right away. It took many years for the company to build up to where it is now and because of that it has opened many departments. 

As the years went on, Amazon continued to grow and out bought many of the companies. Amazon is one of the most widely used companies because it caters to almost if not all of our needs. According to CNBC, as of July 2018, Amazon was ranked number one for retail ecommerce sales with a percentage of 49.1. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/12/amazon-to-take-almost-50-percent-of-us-e-commerce-market-by-years-end.html With this percentage, you can see how much Amazon is used because it dominates the eCommerce market when compared to its “competitors”. No other company even came close to Amazon’s percentage of retail eCommerce sales. This shows how convenient Amazon is to the average person nowadays because many people would rather order online with a fast shipping date than go to a store or use a different company that has a longer shipping date.

Everyone if not almost everyone uses Amazon. I as well fall under that category of Amazon users because my family uses Amazon for almost everything. Amazon has proven to be more efficient for my family because many of us are involved in activities, and with the help of Amazon, we can order anything off of their app with just one click of a button. Amazon caters to almost all of our needs such as auto parts, technology, movies, food, toys, etc. The food aspect was recently added a few years ago to Amazon because Amazon bought Whole Foods. That was a huge thing for my family because sometimes my mom would get sick or was too busy to go to the store, so she would order off of Amazon, and a few hours later it would show up at our door well packaged. Amazon is also how my dad orders gifts for Christmas or birthdays because it’s less time consuming and shipment is a lot faster than most companies. With loyal customers like my family, Amazon starts to get more powerful because eventually it will start to open up new departments online, which unfortunately will force other competitors to go out of business.

With being as big as Amazon is, this company is able to outlast any competitor in a new industry because they have the resources and money to do so. In an article called “Amazon too powerful?” by Joe Harker, he states “They report that what makes Amazon so threatening to other companies when it enters a new industry is its use of data analytics, they know where you live, what shows you watch and what you buy. Having access to this allows them to understand a customer base better than their competitors and present themselves as a convenient and reliable option.” http://www.perspecsnews.com/read/business/amazon-too-powerful/r1gJvxVs2z/rkgkyx66nG By stating this, you can see that Amazon can beat any company since they are able to sell the same product but for a cheaper price and a faster ship date. Amazon also has useful resources to them such as data analytics, which is a huge advantage because they are able to use that information to get the buyers attention causing the customer to keep adding things into their cart. With an advantage as big as that, Amazon is able to keep their customers because the company can show the person alternative options that are similar to their recent purchase. This will eventually cause Amazon to dominate in that industry out-beating all the “competitors” it had in the beginning. 

While Amazon seems to be getting more powerful, there are some who believe it is becoming less relevant to our society. In an article from Fast Company, Cale Guthrie Weissman stated, “Jennings points to numerous tweets–most of whom come from the loud but incestuous media twitter circle–of popular accounts imploring their followers to break ties with the company. (A search of Google Trends for the search query “cancel Amazon Prime” shows a spike last December, followed by a steady decline.” https://www.fastcompany.com/90272794/bezos-backlash-why-people-are-canceling-amazon-prime-memberships By quoting this, the author is letting it be known that Amazon, who thought they dominated the industry, started to show signs of declining in sales. The reason being was because at the end of Black Friday and Cyber-Monday, Amazon showed a visual of their profits from just those days in order to show their dominance in the business world. Once people started to see their post on their profits, many wanted to cancel their memberships with Amazon and started supporting small companies. Amazon’s competitors even started to openly discourage customers from using Amazon. This caused a huge controversy for Amazon because they lost a lot of business, and unfortunately, the company did take an economic hit from the strike.

As Amazon continues to grow, it will gain more and more power through the business industry. This company is also able to grow due to its loyal customers because Amazon can satisfy the public with reasonable prices and fast shipping. There are some who may disagree that Amazon is becoming powerful, but their evidence isn’t enough to back up that theory due to the fact that the Amazon incident took place during a small span. Amazon will continue to dominate its competitors due to the money and resources it has access to, and because of this, Amazon will gain more power over newer companies and remain the powerhouse for online shopping.