WORLD WRAP
The
success story...
1,50,000 jobs in the US, growing its
workforce in the country to 1,80,000
by the end of last year. Its other
businesses, such as Marketplace
and Amazon Flex, will also create
hundreds of thousands of jobs for
people who want the flexibility to be
an entrepreneur and set their own
schedules. Employing 45,000 robots,
up by 50 per cent year-on-year,
Amazon is also building a US $ 1.5
billion hub for its own cargo airline,
capturing 0.7 per cent of the UK
grocery market in a mere six months
after launch, and showed a record
holiday season in 2016 by shipping
over 1 billion items.
So what makes
Amazon successful?
New technologies and changing shopping habits are redefining the retail
business globally with online being an important strategy for any retailer who
is focusing on reaching a wider audience. And for those who are online, the
convenience of reach and profits amass…, such is the case with the online
retail giant Amazon. The retailer kick-started this year with fresh rounds of
announcements which included its plan of hiring more than 1,00,000 people
in the US in the next 18 months. This is particularly not surprising for a
company pushing into multiple categories – from groceries to hardware, online
videos, fashion, cloud services and multiple tiers of delivery. This e-commerce
juggernaut is continuously dominating and is the world’s eighth largest retailer
that is aggressively expanding its delivery network to get packages to prime
members faster. Nevertheless, it recently announced its foray into private
label groceries also.
A
ccording to the Wall Street
Journal, Amazon generated 27
per cent of total retail growth last year
and accounted for US $ 0.42 of every
US $ 1.00 of growth in e-commerce.
Despite its size, Amazon managed
to increase its worldwide revenue by
28 per cent in the first quarter, to a
total of US $ 29.1 billion. In addition
to its retail success, Amazon’s cloud
service and Amazon Web Services
saw 64 per cent revenue growth year
on year, accounting for 56 per cent
of Amazon’s operating income in
the quarter. Over the past five years,
Amazon has created more than
62 Apparel Online Bangladesh | MAY 2017 | www.apparelresources.com
Aggressive push in apparel
and fashion businesses
The online retailer is aggressively
expanding in the fashion business,
owning seven fashion brands in
addition to Zaapos footwear brand
and is working hard to grow these
numbers through acquisitions.
According to Cowen and Company,
the gross merchandise value of the
Amazon US apparel business will
grow from US $ 15 billion in 2016 to
US $ 50 billion by 2020. And Cowen
also predicts that Amazon will be
the No. 1 apparel retailer in the US
next year, achieving 14 per cent
market share.