Back in 1995, Amazon created a sensation as an online bookstore. But from the humble online bookstore it once was, Amazon rose to be a global online shopping destination for just about anything you want.
For most people in the 15 countries where Amazon has corporate offices, Amazon is the first choice when anyone thinks of shopping online.
The Chinese company Alibaba came into the picture much later, in 1999, and by that time online shopping had already gathered steam. Amazon entered the stock market at $18 per share on May 15, 1997. Alibaba debuted at $92.70 per share in September 2014.
Amazon is the 2nd largest US private employer as of 2016 and made up 3% of total retail transactions in the US. Alibaba makes up 11.8% of China’s total retail and is the world’s sixth largest Internet company by revenue while Amazon is at the top of that list.
Both Amazon and Alibaba have also diversified significantly.
Amazon has many other services in its portfolio such as Amazon Prime, the managed cloud service Amazon Web Services (AWS), Junglee, Alexa, Amazon Fire, Amazon Kindle, Amazon Publishing, Amazon Drive, etc., and Alibaba has the YouTube equivalent Youku Tudou, Ali Express, 1688.com, Taobao.com, the cloud service Alibaba Cloud, Ant Financial, Alimama, etc.
Alibaba’s cloud business has significantly soared in demand.
The ecommerce site hosting services of Amazon and Alibaba significantly contribute to their income, with Alibaba particularly seeing a major rise in income.
At the helm of American Amazon and Chinese Alibaba are Jeff Bezos and Jack Ma respectively, two industrious and far-sighted individuals who’ve become celebrities in their own rights.
It’s important to study the activities and tremendous growth potential of these retail giants to get a better understanding of the ecommerce industry.
This infographic put together by Ecommerce-Platforms.com does just that.
