How does Amazon sell so many different things?

Hi All;

It may seem like a silly question, but how does Amazon stock a gazillion items? It's unlikely that they would have an enormous warehouse containing everything. In thinking that they have partnerships with many retailers, how is that when it is shipped to me that the box is an Amazon box?

Regards
SEOX

 

Check out this article - 'How Amazon Works'. It pretty explains how the retail giant works with pictures and external links.

This [MUST SEE] 72 page presentation on Amazon.com reveals really interesting & fascinating facts.

Amazon Media Room has some high-resolution pictures of their fulfillment centers.

Youtube has some inside videos of their fulfillment centers.

 

SCALE! They have been able to utilize the economy of scale to do what they have done. They have hired many employees to enable to create what they have.

 

They do have some pretty huge automated warehouses. And a whole bunch of very smart people building very smart scalable infrastructure, which they make available for other companies to use. The are one of the biggest 'cloud' providers and after Google and Microsoft have some of the biggest server infrastructure in the world

 

You may not realise it, but Amazon does not have a shop on the street like other companies. This allows them to manage huge warehouses stocked with items ready for dispatching. One thing they do well is reordering of items - when they are selling fast.

Another company that uses the same method is Argos - they don't have shops on the high street. Instead, everything happens from the stockroom.

Be sure to read up on the link above.