Day 2: Everything Amazon

Gisela Hausmann had a unique perspective on Amazon when she started a job in 2019 as a front-line worker at one of the company's delivery hubs in South Carolina.

A native of Vienna, Austria, she had years of experience as a logistics professional, learning the industry from the ground up at FedEx, and working for a major ocean freight shipping company. She had also been following Amazon closely for many years as an independent auth...

Direct retail sales are poised to represent less than half of Amazon's business for the first time in its history — a fundamental shift that reflects the e-commerce giant's expansion beyond its roots as an online store.

Revenue from Amazon Web Services, Amazon Prime, third-party seller services, online advertising and other services added up to 49.3% of Amazon's business in the second quarter. It was a new high, almost matchi...

Amazon’s direct workforce rose by 500,000 people in 2020 — that's half a million people — to nearly 1.3 million employees. The extraordinary hiring, supporting the rapid expansion of Amazon's warehouse and delivery operations, raised the natural question: what would be the consequences of all that growth?

An eight-month New York Times investigation, published this week, provides much of the answer, telling the sto...

Prime Day is almost here. Actually, it’s two days. But who’s counting? Well, Amazon sure is. Scheduled for June 21 and 22, the annual sales event is closely followed by many Prime members eager for deals. 

Overcoming a lackluster 2015 debut and a 2018 online outage, Prime Day has become one of the most important annual events for the company, effectively creating a second peak season, six months after the tradition...

Amazon is at a pivotal moment in its history, facing growing regulatory and legal scrutiny just as a new CEO, Andy Jassy, takes the reins from founder Jeff Bezos.

Could a new leadership principle help to guide the company in its next era?

"Treat others as you'd like to be treated — employees, vendors, partners, brands, small companies, competitors, press, critics, community," his suggested leadership principle reads, in part....

Wait, didn't Amazon win its battle with the union in Bessemer, Ala.? Yes, the vote came out in the company's favor, but the story isn't over yet.

The  Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union is appealing the outcome to the National Labor Relations Board, citing what it contends were unfair tactics by Amazon during the vote -- which the company adamantly denies.

The NRLB hosted a virtual hearing that spanned many days befo...

An antitrust lawsuit filed against Amazon by the Washington, D.C., attorney general Karl Racine this week promises to test the evidence and allegations that have been marshaled against the tech giant by U.S. legislators and regulators.

The suit leans heavily on findings from the U.S. House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee last year, alleging that Amazon illegally manipulates the e-commerce market to its advantage by penalizing thir...

Customer reviews have become central to online commerce, playing a huge role in determining which products succeed or fail on Amazon and other sites. A study by Northwestern University’s Spiegel Research Center found that nearly 95% of shoppers read online reviews before making a purchase. 

But the authenticity of some Amazon customer reviews is coming under new scrutiny after a data leak exposed unidentified sellers coo...

Has the past year convinced you that your family doesn't need multiple vehicles? Could you be persuaded to give up all of your cars? We may not be there yet as a society, but Jesse Levinson wants to get us closer to that reality.

A veteran in the world of autonomous vehicles, Levinson is the co-founder and CTO of Zoox, a Foster City, Calif., company developing its own electric, autonomous vehicle and robotaxi ride-hailing service. ...

Year-over-year quarterly growth of 44% would be significant for any company, but when the numbers were already this big, it starts to qualify as astonishing.

Amazon's sales of $108.5 billion in the first quarter compared with $75.5 billion a year earlier, setting a new record for the Seattle-based e-commerce giant and providing a glimpse of its strong position as the world emerges from the pandemic. Amazon is easing its spending on...

Over the past two years, dozens of heavily-funded investment firms have formed with a singular purpose: Buying small companies that sell through Amazon.

In many ways, these so-called aggregators operate as mini private-equity firms. They quickly buy out popular mom-and-pop Amazon sellers, and then attempt to use their e-commerce expertise in marketing and logistics to drive additional revenue and profits across a wide range of bran...

In a public defeat for organized labor, a sizable majority of Amazon warehouse employees voted against unionization in Bessemer, Ala. in an election overseen by federal authorities Friday. But the process put a harsh spotlight on labor practices in the tech giant's fulfillment centers, and the company's anti-union tactics. In the larger scheme of things, was this really a win for Amazon? On this episode GeekWire reporter Mike Lewis...

A landmark effort to unionize an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer Alabama is putting the spotlight on working conditions in the company’s rapidly expanding distribution network and the future of the labor movement in the United States after a year of unprecedented growth for the company and challenges for the country. But it’s not the first time there’s been an effort to unionize part of Amazon’s workforce.

On t...

What happens when Amazon makes its own, cheaper version of a product another company painstakingly developed? On the debut episode of Day 2, "Amazon Jungle" author Jason Boyce and GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop speak Peter Dering of Peak Design, whose company issued a savagely funny video mocking Amazon for knocking off its popular camera bag. As you'll hear, Dering's take on the issue is much more evolved and pragmatic than a sou...

GeekWire is launching a new podcast, "Day 2," that will examine the impact of the company's business on the world. We'll do this through in-depth conversations with people directly involved, and with experts in the underlying issues. In this introductory episode, GeekWire co-founders John Cook and Todd Bishop, longtime business and technology journalists in Seattle, talk with podcast collaborator Jason Boyce, a former Amazon third-...