Word: costs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...master much more than an evolution of commerce, replacing old-fashioned stores with a centralized sales and shipping center. But even that one change, he notes, grabbing a favorite word, is "huge." For old-line businesses like K Mart, getting new customers meant building new stores at a cost of millions. For Bezos, serving new customers costs next to nothing...
...want to see all the information we collect on Amazon--the customer reviews, the professional reviews and use our agenting technology--you have to pay $30 a year." Those membership fees would be used to help drive down the price of items, which would be sold almost at cost. Nonmembers could shop there, of course. They just wouldn't have access to Amazon's rich data and whizzy technology...
...delivered to your door. The Coffeyville center, for instance, is part of a nationwide distribution network specially designed to handle e-commerce. Half a dozen warehouses like it have been strategically placed in low- or no-sales-tax states around the U.S.--3 million sq. ft., at a cost of $200 million--and are built to do what traditional warehouses can't do: deliver items directly and efficiently to customers rather than by pallet to retail stores. It requires new ways of thinking about employees--and customers...
...black hole gaped through the ceiling--this was where a potbellied stove had been ripped out to make more room. To save money, Bezos went to Home Depot and bought three wooden doors. Using angle brackets and 2-by-4s, he hammered together three desks, at a cost of $60 each. (That frugality continues at Amazon to this day; every employee sits behind a door desk.) MacKenzie agreed to work with the crew a few days a week, helping out with accounting and interviewing--the latter chore often conducted, cheekily, in a nearby Barnes & Noble...
...with SUVs and light trucks has virtually arrested larger environmental gains. "Even though emissions standards for cars have been pretty tough, we were seeing ever-increasing pollution because more people are driving trucks and SUVs," says TIME environment editor Charles Alexander. While the new gas and emissions requirements will cost consumers a little bit more at the pump (estimates vary between 2 and 6 cents a gallon) and at the car dealerships (about $200 for the extra equipment), the bulk of the outlay will be borne by oil refiners and automakers. "The car makers were actually reasonably happy with this...