
How Big Is Amazon? Its Many Businesses in One Chart - kungfudoi
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/13/666274605/how-big-is-amazon
======
RickS
This isn't a chart at all. The format I hoped for was the style used in this
breakdown of the food industry, which really illuminates the scale and breadth
of the major players:

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-
us/www/static/media/files/Beh...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/oxfam-
us/www/static/media/files/Behind-the-brands-illusion-of-choice-
graphic-2048x1351.jpg)

~~~
kbenson
Different things for different purposes. That food industry chart shows you
how a few players control many of the major brands, so it makes sense to be
dense and show the brand logos.

This is trying to show how many pies Amazon has its fingers in, and for the
vast majority, nobody is going to recognize any logo, and using text would
make a chart like the food industry one hopelessly busy and hard to read. As
it is, that food chart is really only good at conveying one thing since it
doesn't clearly differentiate groups of ownership form each other, which is
consolidation of an industry into a few large companies. That doesn't even
make sense in this case, as instead it's trying to show the reach on one
company.

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lalaithion
I'm confused; this "chart" seems to just be a list. Am I missing something?

~~~
notyourwork
It meets the definition of a chart, perhaps it isn't your expectation for a
chart to represent the title.

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travisjungroth
Calling formatted lists with headers and clipart a chart is quite a stretch.

~~~
navan
Agree. I thought the length of each box may have some meaning. But it just
seems to be stretched to fit the text.

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asavadatti
This is such a bad chart. It gives us no sense of scale. Looking at this you'd
think AWS and AbeBooks do the same amount of business.

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mywittyname
Most of these aren't separate businesses, they are just products offered in a
space.

Like, surprise, you can buy produce, clothing, shoes, and books on Amazon and
pay with one of two rewards cards.

~~~
kbenson
> Most of these aren't separate businesses, they are just products offered in
> a space.

I'm not sure I follow.

> Like, surprise, you can buy produce

Through a completely different brick-and-morter grocery business, While Foods,
which was bought when already a supermarket chain.[1]

> clothing, shoes

Through Zappos, which is its own online identity with its own shopping portal,
which caters specifically to clothes. Also bought when it was already an
online specialty retailer.[2]

> books

Of course you can buy books. That's what Amazon started doing. Goodreads, is a
social network for books and book recommendations, Amazon publishing does
_publishing_ , Audible _makes audio versions_ not just sells them, and
AbeBooks is listed as selling Art and collectibles.

> on Amazon and pay with one of two rewards cards.

 _And_ they provide financial services and transaction processing. Amazon Pay
works anywhere that supports it, just like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

I really, _really_ don't understand where you're coming from. Yes, you should
be surprised that one company can do all that, since I don't think any other
company ever has before.

1: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-buy-whole-foods-
for-1...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-to-buy-whole-foods-
for-13-7-billion-1497618446)

2: [https://techcrunch.com/2009/07/22/amazon-buys-
zappos/](https://techcrunch.com/2009/07/22/amazon-buys-zappos/)

~~~
mywittyname
You can buy all of those products directly through Amazon. I've bought
clothes, shoes, groceries, produce, and books on amazon.com, not through
Zappos or Whole Foods, but literally on Amazon.com.

They sold shoes before they acquired Zappos, and AmazonFresh predates the
Whole Foods acquisition.

~~~
kbenson
> You can buy all of those products directly through Amazon. I've bought
> clothes, shoes, groceries, produce, and books on amazon.com

You completely ignoring the substance of my comment to reiterate your point
without addressing what I noted.

What does what goods you were able to buy on Amazon have to do with digital
_publishing_ or the _production of audio content_ , or providing _financial
services /transaction processing_?

> not through Zappos or Whole Foods, but literally on Amazon.com.

> AmazonFresh predates the Whole Foods acquisition.

AmazonFresh as a _beta_ rollout predates the Whole Foods acquisition by less
than three months.

I struggle to see how you equate a physical retail network with hundreds of
locations with what was a food delivery service or just in beta at select
locations food pickup service.

> They sold shoes before they acquired Zappos

I think this is the only item you've noted that is actually not that different
than what Amazon was already doing.

~~~
mywittyname
I don't disagree that those are separate businesses. I disagree with how this
article presents this information. Every item listed is not a separate
business -- most of them are actually different products/departments.

Their chart becomes much less impressive if you distill it down to only
independent businesses within Amazon.

~~~
kbenson
> I don't disagree that those are separate businesses. I disagree with how
> this article presents this information. Every item listed is not a separate
> business

Ah, I see, we interpreted the meaning of "many businesses" differently. I
interpreted businesses to mean markets, as used colloquially in "we're getting
into the business of X". You seem to have interpret it as "companies".

The article isn't trying to just point out entities Amazon owns, it's trying
to indicate all the markets Amazon has entered, as indicated by the line
"Below is a snapshot of many of the dozens of companies or divisions that
Amazon owns and operates, showing its reach is far and wide."

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User23
Anyone that wants to create infographics should really familiarize themselves
with the work of Edward Tufte.

[https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/](https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/)

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roymurdock
Good idea, someone should write this up as an actual chart and size by
financial impact vs competitors (eg walmart microsoft google barnes n nobles
etc) to make it truly useful

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ohples
They forgot Amazons package delivery company. Not Amazon Flex, the other one
were the delivery people have to buy a franchise.

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slantyyz
Tangentially related: Netflix's Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj had an
interesting episode about Amazon.[1]

It's a little oversimplified, but it does a good job of explaining how large
Amazon is to the layperson.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maXvZ5fyQY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maXvZ5fyQY)

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dmlab
Doesnt give you any sense of the individual size of each of Amazon's business
arm, let alone the whole. .....absolutely not a chart

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dksf
Are these categories broken out by revenue/profit anywhere? Do quarterly
earnings breakouts map to these buckets?

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catacombs
This is not a chart. It's a list of Amazon services. The NPR Visuals Team has
really tanked in the last year.

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whoisjuan
What a lazy article...

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eiaoa
They missed Amazon Basics.

