Interview with Jeff Bezos of Amazon

slakdrgn writes "Wired has an interview with Jeff Bezos (CEO of Amazon.com) with some interesting information on how he approaches the market, why they stopped doing TV advertising three years ago and hints at what might be coming in the future."

Amazon and othe stores

[northcat]

He just tells about the advantages of online bookstores over conventional bookstores. He doesn't say much about what advantages Amazon can offer over other online bookstores. I guess there aren't many.

Why you should never by used books through Amazon

[Nova Express]

Hopefully, everyone who buys used books as well as new ones should know about Bookfinder [bookfinder.com], which searches tens of thousands of dealers on various listings sites (including, if you want, Amazon and Barnes & Noble). When you buy a used book through Amazon, what you're usually buying a book that's already listed through one the multiple listing sites that Amazon adds their own percetange (usually 100%) on top of.

And I know, because I sell science fiction first editions [rr.com] in my spare time.

Re:Is it just me..

[bulkmailforyou]

It does seem to be an empty interview, but it is from Wired, so it seems to be part of the slashdot-wired subscription service. Amazon was great when they first started, you could get textbooks and other hard to find in regular bookstore books. From the interview, that appears to still be their strategy.

I do find it difficult to find out if an item is really in stock or may be in stock though. More than a few times I have ordered books that were "usually shipped in 24 hours" that were not going to be available for weeks. Technically it does not say in stock, but I assumed that it would be. Where I first used to order from amazon a hard to find book, since I may not get it for weeks now, I first try the local bookstores that may have it (SoftPro for software books). Stores like that also have great people working there who know a lot about the subjects in the store.

My experience

[LewsTherinKinslayer]

I've used a few different online retailers for various products. The best two I have ever dealt with is amazon and newegg.

Not once has either screwed up my order: always on time, with the correct contents, and well packaged. Which is why I keep coming back. They both have ease of use, with reliability. Perhaps they don't offer any unique in and of themselves. Perhaps their prices are the same as elsewhere. But the fact is, if I know I can trust them to not send me the wrong damn fan, or that my dvd will arrive and they case won't be cracked, then I'll always go with them.

Netflix

[Stephen]

On the Netflix question, what he didn't say was that amazon.co.uk is already offering that service. I didn't realise that the US branch wasn't, actually. I'm sure they will do it in the US soon.

He's probably right that Amazon wouldn't need to market it, and in the UK, it's much cheaper than the competing services (£7.99 per month for up to four rentals, two at a time; or £9.99/six/three).

search-inside-the-book

[Mordibity]

What I thought was most interesting was his comment about search-inside-the book. When that feature debuted, I remember reading a highly-rated comment here on /. by someone who's spouse was in the book biz who thought that it would be death for cookbooks and reference works since people could get the info piecemeal instead of buying the book. And yet Bezos says they were worried a little about that, too, but relative sales in those categories increased the most!

Re:Amazon's growth...

[great om]

go to oclc http://www.oclc.org/ (they have all the library class classification you need)

they sell their data. This is where librarians actually get the data we use for public access catalogs

- a librarian

Re:Amazon's growth...

[Lord_Scrumptious]

When we started, I desperately wanted to offer a browsing technique that would model "dialing down" a search in a huge library

Barnes and Noble offer a "Book Browser" feature at their website [barnesandnoble.com] - they even have a flash demo that demonstrates how to use the feature. It's not a perfect browsing tool, but it does offer you the option of drilling down to a more granular level as you mention. Browsing for books at the Barnes and Noble website is certainly easier than browsing at Amazon.

That's incorrect.

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who's sold a number of used books on Amazon, the commission they charge is pretty small. From the marketplace site:

4. The moment a buyer purchases your item, Amazon.com collects $0.99 plus a percentage of the sales price:

Computers = 6 percent

Camera & Photo, Cell Phones & Service, and Electronics items = 8 percent

Items in the Everything Else Store = 10 percent

All other product lines = 15 percent

I used to take my books to Half-Price Books but stopped once I sold a few on Amazon and made 6x what Half-Price Books would offer me. So, as a small time seller (I just sell personal stuff I no longer need, such as hiking books from a place I used to live or programming books which didn't pan out), selling on Amazon is awesome. I've made $100 in the last month selling things I had laying around on Amazon.

Similarly, I've bought a ton of used stuff on Amazon and have never had a problem.

Jeff Bezos at Web 2.0

[Grassferry49]

If you're interested in Jeff Bezos and the interview has left you wondering more still, check out the conversation with him posted at ITConversations from the Web 2.0 Conference. Jeff talks about Amazon and entertains questions from the audience.

IT Conversations - Jeff Bezos [itconversations.com]