Amazon is a great place to buy and sell goods online.
What is Amazon’s Main Product: It may be hard to believe, but there are many people out there who don’t know what Amazon’s main product is! Whether they didn’t realize it or just had no idea, here’s the answer you’ve been waiting for!
What is Amazon’s Main Product?
Amazon’s main product and reason for being has changed throughout the years, as has their inventory and distribution methods. You can read all about how this has progressed here in this blog article!
Services
With more than 60 million active users worldwide, Amazon Prime is a big deal. The $99 per year subscription service offers free two-day shipping on most products, plus free access to books, movies, and music—and members in some cities can even get same-day delivery through Prime Now. For many people, it’s worth every penny just for unlimited access to entertainment alone.
But with so many members around the world and so much traffic running through its site each day, it’s not surprising that Amazon offers an array of services beyond shipping. From grocery delivery to live video streaming—the company has proven time and again that it really can do anything.
Devices
Sure, we all know that Amazon started off selling books. However, these days you can also find just about everything else under their roof as well. In fact, many experts credit them with changing how we shop and making a much wider range of goods accessible to a greater number of people than ever before.
From clothing to consumer electronics to furniture and even home decor, you can buy almost anything on Amazon today. The company has become so big that it’s hard to imagine what life was like before they came along!
Platforms
Although it started as an online bookstore, Amazon has grown into a multifaceted e-commerce powerhouse. In addition to selling books, magazines, and music, Amazon also provides access to thousands of software products through its services division. Through its technology platform, called Web Services (or AWS), other companies can rent data storage and computing power over the internet.
The company also manufactures consumer electronics and runs a successful advertising business. To be fair, it’s not one thing; it’s everything! And yet, despite its many revenue streams, investors have been hanging onto every word of what founder Jeff Bezos has to say about competing with Google on e-commerce search and mobile advertising revenue growth.
Music
There are two main products that makeup Amazon’s core business. The first, and oldest, is its music-download store. The online retailer started selling digital tracks in 1998 before many people knew what MP3 files were (let alone iPods or streaming services) and has been at it ever since. According to estimates by Morningstar Inc., physical music sales represented 14 percent of U.S. retail revenue in 2017; downloads accounted for 8 percent.
In other words, although they have declined significantly over time, both formats still matter—and Amazon dominates them both. While Apple Music had a head start on Spotify when it launched in 2015, Amazon Prime Music has caught up quickly.
It now offers more than 2 million songs for free with an Amazon Prime membership ($99 per year). It also offers more than 50 million songs for purchase through its MP3 store, where you can buy individual tracks or entire albums from your favorite artists for $1-$2 each.
Digital goods
While Amazon sells nearly everything imaginable, they’re known as a technology company first and foremost. Their founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, even started up an online bookstore because he had a passion for reading himself. The Kindle became one of their flagship products soon after launch thanks to its ability to easily download new books through wireless access points throughout most major cities.
Now you can even read on your phone or tablet thanks to new services like Whispersync—all at little to no cost. If you want to know what Amazon is best known for, just look at their homepage: Earth’s Biggest Selection. That says it all.
Physical goods
At first glance, it’s easy to assume that Amazon is all about online retail. Think again: although it’s true that it sells a lot of stuff online, more than 40% of its sales come from other businesses using its marketplace to sell their own stuff. In 2016, sellers on its platform sold approximately $160 billion worth of goods (of which close to 50% was new merchandise and around 45% were used or refurbished.
Or certified); in 2017, $218 billion worth of goods were sold through its various marketplaces—more than double in two years’ time! To put things into perspective, Amazon’s total revenue for 2017 was just shy of $177 billion. That means its Marketplace alone made up almost half of all revenue generated by third-party sellers on its platform!
And while e-commerce still accounts for most transactions, there are now more than 2 million third-party merchants selling physical products via Amazon Marketplace worldwide. To get an idea of how fast these numbers are growing, consider that back in 2012 only 1 million merchants were active on its platform; three years later that number had grown to 2 million.
Media & entertainment
While Amazon has a wide variety of offerings, its most popular service by far is media and entertainment. That includes books, movies, music, apps, and games. Of course, it also includes Amazon’s original content as well. In other words: If you’re looking for something to watch or read on any device (from your TV to your phone), odds are good that you can find it on Amazon.
The problem with media and entertainment—and the reason why people tend to avoid shopping in these categories online—is that products can be incredibly expensive. And that’s just for one version of a product! Most folks don’t want to buy an iPhone on Verizon; they want one that works everywhere. Likewise, if you’re buying clothing, you probably want more than one size/color option. This is where shopping around comes into play. You could easily spend hours comparing prices from different retailers.
But there’s no need to do that when we can do it for you! Our price comparison tool lets us cut through all of that so we can show you only what matters: What’s available at a great price from a trustworthy retailer. When was the last time you looked up how much something cost on Amazon? Let us do all of that hard work for you so we can help ensure that your purchase goes smoothly and without incident.
Consumer electronics
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its size and growth trajectory, consumer electronics is one of Amazon’s largest categories. The Kindle is Amazon’s bestselling product, followed by computer accessories such as cables and keyboards. But you don’t have to break out your slide rule to add up what category it falls into. You might assume that one of e-commerce’s pioneers—who pioneered the now-ubiquitous (and much maligned) 1-Click checkout button—is primarily an e-commerce site; however, you would be wrong.
While Amazon does sell products directly from its website, a significant portion of its revenue comes from other retailers who use Amazon as their marketplace. In fact, almost half of all units sold on Amazon are actually sold by third-party sellers using Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA). This means that a lot of those consumer electronics are being shipped directly from warehouses operated by other companies.
It also means that if you want to start selling on Amazon, there’s no need to worry about managing inventory or shipping orders yourself: just send them off to FBA and they will do it for you! If you’re looking for a way to get started with your own online business today – check out how easy it can be with SellerApp!
Groceries and consumables
According to a report by Internet Retailer, in 2013, consumers spent about $4.5 billion on consumables bought through Amazon’s Prime Pantry service, which offers items like detergent and coffee for an extra fee (added to your overall order). But grocery delivery isn’t just for Prime members: Instacart delivers non-perishable grocery items from retailers including Whole Foods (WFMI), and Costco (COST).
And Kroger (KR) in as little as one hour. That same report found that sales of consumer packaged goods on general merchandise sites grew 13% between 2012 and 2014. Expect that trend to continue as online grocery shopping becomes even more popular. –Claire Tsosie with contributions from Glenn Fleishman and Sarah Schmid Stevenson
Retail Products
Although many associate Amazon with books and other retail goods, it also sells services like cloud hosting, online backup, and even a line of kitchen appliances. The number of services offered by Amazon has steadily increased since its inception. In 2007, it started to offer streaming music and video downloads through what is now called Amazon Music Unlimited, followed in 2011 by Prime Video.
But did you know that despite its growing stable of service offerings, almost half of all product sales still come from those retail goods you know and love? (That’s right: You can stream The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel on your Fire TV Stick, but if you want to watch Game of Thrones—well, too bad.) It’s not hard to see why people are so loyal to Amazon—and why they keep coming back for more.
A recent study found that customers who shopped at both Walmart and Amazon said they preferred Amazon over Walmart overall (including shipping costs). A full 75% percent of respondents said they would be willing to buy items exclusively from one retailer or another depending on price; only 5% said they wouldn’t shop at either store again regardless of price.
Also Read: Which Part of Amazon Make the Most Money?
Conclusion
The simple answer to what is Amazon’s main product? is… people. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration. But you get my point. Any e-commerce business owner worth their salt knows that you have to nurture and grow your customer base.
But, more importantly, customers today want to buy from brands and businesses they trust. And if those customers don’t trust your brand or business yet, then what are they buying from you?
