Amazon: The Most Competitive Business Ever Built?

Bezos started with books simply because he figured out that books had ISBN numbers, and that worked well with Internet ordering, since categorization and ordering was simplified.

Bezos took classes offered by the American Booksellers Association, the lead organization of independent booksellers. He was struck by a seminar on customer service, catering Amazon to interact and know the customer. If customers shopped for mystery, Amazon knew to recommend more mystery books.

All that remained after that was discount pricing, or taking advantage of lower costs without brick-and-mortar overhead to give deals each and every day.

Once Amazon became the online leader in book selling, the company quickly diversified into other retail products, including household items, electronics and others, while adding third-party vendors to boost product offerings and commissions requiring little overhead.

Tablet Likely on the Way

Amazon was among the first companies to show that yes, the dot com boom wasn't all bust. But the company didn't stop there. It developed the Kindle, the leading e-reader, and profitably changed publishing in a way that many traditional book publishers weren't ready for, with e-books.

At the moment, Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing is also among the leading forums for self-publishing in the world. Users can upload books for free, and Amazon gets a cut of every sale.

Now, Amazon is poised to enter the tablet world, as observers say the company will launch perhaps as early as this year an Adroid-based product to compete directly with Apple's iPad. Like Apple, Amazon has the apps and content available online to back up the bold move. Based on Amazon's success with the Kindle, success with a tablet doesn't seem to be a question. Rather, the question seems only to be how successful Amazon will be with its tablet.

Still, that diversification alone isn't what has Amazon starting to look like it might be the most competitive business ever built.