Most Helpful Customer Reviews
33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Rehashed Outlines of Old Newspaper and Magazine Stories, August 28, 2000
This review is from: Business the Amazon.com Way: Secrets of the Worlds Most Astonishing Web Business (Hardcover)
When a publisher doesn't like your book proposal, the way they try to let you down easily is to tell you it would make a good magazine article. Why would a publisher take on a book whose sources are newspapers, magazines, and books from an author who tell us she doesn't like to buy books on line from Amazon.com to write about a company that started as an on-line bookseller? Since you are obviously a fan of Amazon.com or you would not be reading this review, my opinion is that you could probably write a better history of the company and its success pattern than this book did based on your own experiences with the company. Given that everything in the book was from public sources, I could not understand how the author could call her points "secrets." But here they are: (1) Understand e-commerce (2) Build an entrepreneurial team (3) Focus (4) Brand the site (5) Get and keep customers by offering value (6) Set up a distribution network (7) practice frugality (8) practice technoleverage (improve your performance with technology) (9) constantly reinvent your business model (10) add strategic alliances and acquisitions. What does that tell you that you didn't know before? On the interesting question of whether Amazon.com will be able to sustain the cashflow losses, the author says nothing other than that the harvesting period is still ahead. I compared this book to the book, Amazon.com, which had its own weaknesses, and found that this book lacked an authentic voice of reflecting what is different about the company it studies. Where are the anecdotes, the polls of customers, powerful material from message boards, and quantitative analyses of what happened? Even if Amazon.com executives would not talk to her, you can certainly do better than this. Oh, by the way, the facts were not well checked. Those I was familiar with were usually wrong. So you can't even rely on this book for baseline information. I can go on with more reasons not to buy and read the book, but I don't want to waste your time. You have better things to do. In the same way that many Web Sites won't become valuable businesses, many books about Web businesses aren't going to do any better. Here is a fine example of that observation.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
200+ pages of nothing., November 26, 2000
This review is from: Business the Amazon.com Way: Secrets of the Worlds Most Astonishing Web Business (Hardcover)
Ms. Saunders has taken riding someone else's wave to a new low - two waves really. The first is the branding and selling power of anything with "Amazon.com" on it. The second is the hope that this book will follow in the footsteps of Robert Spector's, "The Nordstrom Way," in giving the reader some insight into the world's leading and most successful e-commerce enterprise. Unfortunately, she fails to even remotely live up to either. The book is dry and completely uninformative. Even worse, it's factually incorrect. A couple examples (though there are many, many others): According to Saunders, Amazon.com set up shop in Seattle, Washington because Ingram is there. Um, Ingram is in Oregon, not Washington. What the heck is the Federal Trust Commission? I think it's usually referred to as the Federal Trade Commission. These two errors and the many others in this book have regrettably been printed before - usually in the popular press - which speaks volumes about where she got her material. The book is marketed as an investigative look at the business model and "Ten Secrets" that make it work. Considering the legendary secrecy surrounding Amazon.com's business and the supposed investigative nature of this book, I find it pretty amazing that she knocked it out without attempting to consult a single (current or former) insider. But then again, after the first two pages it becomes very clear that she had no intention of going out of her way. The book itself is about as pure an attempt to capitalize on Amazon.com's success as could have been imagined. Oh, and the ten secrets touted on the cover are actually basic common sense and obvious to anyone who visits Amazon.com on any sort of a regular basis. If you're curious about Amazon.com, I say stick to Spector and read, "Amazon.com - Get Big Fast," (ISBN: 0066620414). Keep in mind that as of this writing, there really is no truly in-depth factual piece on Amazon.com and it's business model. You can get more information about Amazon.com from the New York Times archives (online) or almost any Wall Street analyst who covers the company.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Boring business buzzwords, December 26, 1999
This review is from: Business the Amazon.com Way: Secrets of the Worlds Most Astonishing Web Business (Hardcover)
This book reads like a standard "how to succeed in business" pamphlet, except the author has ensured there is a reference to amazon.com every other page. Most of what's in there is common sense if you've been on the web for any length of time. It's probably aimed at the pointy haired CEO who hasn't yet got a computer on his desk and fancies his chances at this e-commerce thing. If you have an ounce of common sense, you don't need this book.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
