Since you brought up Amazon, I thought I would share Andy Dunn's (Founder of Bonobos) article on competing with Amazon. https://medium.com/what-i-learned-building/d233f02d52a5 The article concludes that at some point you are inevitably going to go head-to-head with Amazon and their business already has scale to take advantage of many opportunities. Where they are weak or have chinks in their armor, they have made great acquisitions in terms of functions (e.g. customer service via Zappos) and verticals (e.g. baby products via Diapers.com/6pm via female accessories, etc.).
