32 Super Interesting Facts About Amazon That You Should Know

The transformation of Amazon from an online bookseller to an “everything store” is in tandem with founder, Jeff Bezo’s dream. This online retail store has grown in leaps and the year 2018 saw Amazon entering the $1 trillion market capitalization club as the second-ever company, following Apple.

Apart from the wide range of products offered at Amazon, there are some super interesting facts about this company. Read on to know about 32 super interesting facts about Amazon.

1. A different name: The founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezo wanted to name his online store “MakeItSo.com as he thought that with this name, he could sell anything and everything online. However, he chose to go ahead with Amazon, which is the name of the largest river in the world.
2. Early investors: Bezo’s parents were the first investors in Amazon and they invested $300,000. The fund was withdrawn by them from their retirement savings and today it can be said that they made the right investment as Amazon’s revenue at present exceeds $177 billion.
3. First sale: On April 3, 1995, Amazon made its first sale of a book. The book titled Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies by Doug Hofstadte, explores the mechanism of intelligence through computer modeling.
4. Fast reach: It was just within the first month of being launched, Amazon sold books in 45 different countries and to 50 locations in the US.
5. Ring the bell: During the early days, Amazon had a bell that the employees rang every time a sale was made. But with the rising sales, the company had to stop this practice as the bell was being rung too frequently.
6. An oversized mailbox: During the initial stage when the company functioned as an online book retailer, Amazon received mail in huge numbers. To deal with this, Bezo installed an oversized mailbox outside his house.
7. The most expensive book: A book was once listed on Amazon at a price of $23 million! It was due to an algorithm issue that the price of the book on genetic makeup of flies blew out of proportions. However, the issue was addressed and the $23 million book was correctly price at its original price of $106.23.
8. Successful ex-employees: Successful companies like Quora, Hulu, and Jet.com were founded by the former employees of Amazon.
9. A direct and tough boss: Bezo is a tough boss and his direct comments made him notorious among his employees at Amazon.
10. Release your stress: Just like the notorious founder of the company, Amazon also had weird stress releasing mode during the stressful holiday season as the sales are always too high. This allowed an employee to scream out his stress at a manager over the phone!
11. Get paid to quit: At Amazon, employees are paid to quit their jobs once a year. The founder believes that this allows the people to reflect on what they really want.
12. Richest man: With a net worth of more than $125 million, Bezo is the world’s richest man.
13. Robots to help employees: The warehouses at Amazon have more than 45,000 robots that help employees to bring packages to the employees. These robots became a part of Amazon after the company acquired the robotics technology development company, Kiva Systems in 2012.
14. Smile or an arrow: Amazon’s logo is a curve just below its name. It was initially designed to be a smile but with time, the meaning was reformed to mean A to Z.
15. The Christmas of 1998: During the holiday season, Amazon hires additional staff to meet the huge demands. But the holiday season in 1998 was different as the company realized that they were understaffed to meet the demand. So, to meet the order backlog, not only did the employees worked overtime, but they also brought in their friends and family to help at the warehouse!
16. Loads of shipping: Reports suggest that Amazon shipped more than 1.6 million packages in the year 2013.
17. Cardboard usage: Considering the amount of packages Amazon ships on a daily basis, it is estimated that if all the cardboard used were laid out it would the State of West Virginia!
18. Kindle’s original name: Initially, the name Fiona was chosen for the e-reader Kindle. Based on a character from a science fiction novel, who had a machine just like Kindle.
19. Patent for “One Click”: Amazon has the “One Click” button patented. This button allows users to purchase from Amazon in just one click.
20. Apple’s agreement with Amazon: Since the “One Click” button is trademarked by Amazon, Apple, who also offers the “One Click” button is actually through an agreement between the companies.
21. Home at Amazon: In Kansas, it was discovered in the year 2006 that an employee had made himself a home at the company’s office premise. The employee used empty pallets and also other Amazon products which formed his home!
22. Online giant: A report revealed that in 2016, of the total online sales 43% were from Amazon. This clearly indicates that Amazon is an online giant!
23. More valuable: Amazon is valued to be a $912 billion company. This figure is way more than the consolidated value of Wal-Mart, Target, JCPenny, Sears, Macy’s and Best Buy, making Amazon the most valuable retailer.
24. Cities to advertise: Amazon was planning to open an office in North America for its 50,000 employees. And, instead of searching the best city themselves, it was the cities who advertised themselves to house the office. Amazon had a budget of $5 billion in mind!
25. Seattle’s population in Amazon: About 7.5% of the working population in Seattle is employed at Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington.
26. Entry into grocery segment: With the acquisition of Whole Foods, Amazon entered the grocery segment in 2017.
27. Recognition for saving: Employees who come up with ideas that might help the company to save are awarded with the “Door Desk Awards.” This is in line with the Amazon’s cost-cutting measures that it adopted since its inception.
28. Team size decided by pizza: Bezo believes that a team should not be more than what two pizzas can feed. So, the team size at Amazon is not larger than 10 people.
29. No presentation policy: At Amazon, PowerPoint presentations are banned. It was in 2004that this policy was enforced.
30. Narratives to present: With the PowerPoint presentations banned, employees who wish to present an idea have to do so with 4-6 pages of a written document.
31. Slower profits: Even though Amazon was founded in 1995, it was not before 2001 that the company reported profits.
32. Shortest delivery time: The shortest delivery time that Amazon took was 13 minutes to deliver to a customer in California and that too on Christmas Eve!