Updates

  1. Person pages list letters, writing, profiles and links as sortable tables with filters, and show each person's companies as links; Fund letters show each letter's description in its own column.
  2. Experts show a checked job title and a short description of each person; 30 more people have photographs.
  3. Every company, fund, university and publication the experts work for has a page listing the people there.
  4. Fund letters show each letter's thesis and filter by it; 225 person pages list the essays, columns and newsletter issues the person wrote.
  5. Person pages list every essay and newsletter issue a person wrote, and their own books as a table in List view.
  6. Recommends shows the five largest kinds of book and the rest under More; browse pictures load sooner.
  7. Podcasts and talks link the original episode, filter by Audio and video or Press, and list each publisher once.
  8. Pages are wider, Recommends has List and Grid, and a filter clicked again turns off.
  9. Book cards sit in a ruled grid with Open Library and Goodreads links and each book's one-line note.
  10. Funds is now Investors; each investor's styles are buttons that filter the table.
  11. Podcasts and talks on a person's page filter by year and publisher and show as a list or a grid of pictures.
  12. Quotes show only people's own words: 472 summaries written by list sites are gone.
  13. Country pages open from Browse again, and every link on the shelf lands on a page.
  14. Subject and person pages show their sections as tabs, and each book appears once on a person's page.
  15. Book cards show the quote, who said it and the source; grids show five cards to a row.
  16. On a phone, a menu holds the sections, search, Updates, Feedback and dark mode.
  17. Feedback takes a screenshot of the page with no browser prompt, opens a screenshot full size when you click it, and clears itself once sent.
  18. Book cards are centred, search names the topic each book sits in, and any text cut short shows whole on hover.
  19. Search groups its results by kind: people, companies, geographies, subjects, topics, books, funds, fund letters and papers.
  20. The Books table lists who recommended each book by name, and the browser tab names the section you are in.
  21. Feedback can take a screenshot of the page, or one you paste or choose, and opens in the corner beside Updates.
  22. Each rail button reopens its section where you left it, and Browse, Table and People show on every book and subject page.
  23. Filters grey out choices that hold nothing instead of hiding them, and Books › People filters by authors or recommenders.
  24. Feedback takes a subject line and up to three screenshots.
  25. Biographies are grouped by the person they are about: 41 new pages, from Abraham Lincoln to Lee Kuan Yew.
  26. Sport splits into 23 sports, and Religion into one topic per faith.
  27. Book lists show as cards: the cover, one recommendation quote and every recommender by name.
  28. Seventeen subjects that had two or three pages under different names now have one page each.
  29. Every page lists its Experts as authors and recommenders, with a link to them on the Experts tab.
  30. Economics, Financial history, Financial panics and Accounting are subjects of their own, with one page per financial crisis.
  31. Book, person and subject pages open inside the app, so the tabs stay in view.
  32. 996 more book covers, and photographs or logos for 227 more people and companies.
  33. Books › Browse shows every subject as cards, and the rail holds Fund letters, Papers, Experts, Books and Funds.
  34. Every topic over 150 books splits into narrower topics, each with a page of its own.

Send feedback

What is it?
Screenshots, up to 3 (optional)
or paste one with Ctrl+V

We use your email only to reply to you.
EA

E-commerce and Online Retail

Industries

Online retailers work on thin gross margins and are judged on fulfilment cost per order, return rates and the price of paid traffic; scale pays because warehouse and software costs are fixed while shipping stays variable. Marketplaces invert the model, since third-party sellers own the inventory and the platform collects a referral fee of 8 to 15 percent plus fulfilment and advertising charges, which is where most of Amazon's retail profit growth came from alongside AWS. Growth pulled forward during 2020 and then reversed, leaving over-built capacity and a round of layoffs across the sector. The literature covers Amazon from the outside and from the inside, eBay and Alibaba as marketplaces, the contest with Walmart, and conditions in the warehouses that make same-day delivery work.

Books 10Experts 2Recommenders 10

Start here

  1. The Everything StoreBrad Stone, 2013
  2. Working BackwardsColin Bryar, Bill Carr, 2021
  3. The Perfect StoreAdam Cohen, 2002
eBoyseBoys
T3 eBoys
Randall E. Stross · 2000
Open LibraryGoodreads

Two years embedded inside Benchmark Capital.

The Perfect StoreThe Perfect Store
T3 The Perfect Store
Adam Cohen · 2002
Open LibraryGoodreads

eBay: the cleanest early case of a pure marketplace take rate.

Recommended by: Ev Williams

One ClickOne Click
T3 One Click
Richard L. Brandt · 2011
Open LibraryGoodreads

Jeff Bezos and Amazon's early years, from D. E. Shaw to the founding in 1994.

Recommended by: Mohnish Pabrai

The Everything StoreThe Everything Store
T3 The Everything Store
Brad Stone · 2013
Open LibraryGoodreads

Amazon's first two decades, from an online bookshop to selling nearly everything.

Recommended by: Andrew Wilkinson, Mohnish Pabrai and 7 others

Alibaba's WorldAlibaba's World
T3 Alibaba's World
Porter Erisman · 2015
Open LibraryGoodreads

Insider account: an early Western executive on the eBay fight.

BezonomicsBezonomics
T3 Bezonomics
Brian Dumaine · 2020
Open LibraryGoodreads

Business-model analysis rather than a life.

Amazon UnboundAmazon Unbound
T3 Amazon Unbound
Brad Stone · 2021
Open LibraryGoodreads

Amazon from 2010 to 2020: Alexa, AWS, logistics and its rise to the top.

Recommended by: Andrew Wilkinson

FulfillmentFulfillment
T3 Fulfillment
Alec MacGillis · 2021
Open LibraryGoodreads

How Amazon's growth concentrated wealth in a few places and hollowed out others.

Working BackwardsWorking Backwards
T3 Working Backwards
Colin Bryar, Bill Carr · 2021
Open LibraryGoodreads

Amazon's operating mechanisms, from leadership principles to the six-page memo.

Recommended by: Jeff Bezos

Winner Sells AllWinner Sells All
T3 Winner Sells All
Jason Del Rey · 2023
Open LibraryGoodreads

Amazon against Walmart; the retail war told as strategy.

More industries

← Defense and AerospaceHotels and Hospitality →All industries