The Omnivore
Amazon’s 1990s slogan -- ”Earth’s largest bookstore” -- stood for an ambition that now seems cute.
Amazon boasted of its unlimited selection of books, even though in most cases it was simply having them shipped directly from distributors. Today, Amazon sells millions of goods and services, from toys and high-definition televisions to server space for other Internet companies and digital reading devices for book lovers. Borders found it impossible to match Amazon’s selection and went out of business earlier this year. Best Buy has watched Amazon undercut it and commoditize whole product categories, and is now trying to shrink the square footage of its superstores. Wal-Mart Stores has struggled to match the ease and reliability of Amazon’s shipping network, and posted nine straight quarters of declining same-store sales. Web sites that have matched Amazon in selection, price, and customer serviceZappos, Diapers.comBezos has quickly acquired. As its rivals steadily asphyxiate, Amazon is ringing up 50 percent growth in quarterly revenues, and could reach $50 billion in sales this year. Walmart needed almost twice the time -- 33 years -- to cross that threshold. “Amazon is such a smart learning organization,” says Nancy F. Koehn, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. “It’s like a biological organism that through natural selection and adaptation just keeps learning and growing.”