(Bloomberg) —
Amazon.com Inc. once stood behind every product on its eponymous website. It was the retailer of record for items like books, compact discs and electronics. Then an unorthodox decision two decades ago by Jeff Bezos to open the company’s virtual shelves to merchandise from other sellers turned the site into the equivalent of an open-air flea market—and established its reputation as a low-priced everything store.
But converting Amazon into a marketplace brought unexpected challenges. Cheap knockoffs flooded the site. Small businesses discovered that their professional lives were at the mercurial whims of cloistered and secretive executives in Seattle. And an expansion into countries like China brought new problems, such as unsafe products and rampant fraud.
The fourth episode of Foundering: The Amazon Story chronicles the epic expansion of the Amazon Marketplace, which generated tremendous growth for the company and unprecedented wealth for Bezos. It also attracted a litany of complaints from customers and competitors—and the critical attention of regulators around the word.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
