Amazon was already the Goliath of US e-commerce before the pandemic, representing more than 40% of the market, according to Statista. With the boom in online shopping, fueled first by lockdowns and then by stimulus cash, the company's profits shot up for more than a year.
Then came the bust. Amazon's growth stalled out in the middle of 2021, and it posted its first loss in seven years at the beginning of 2022. By November, Amazon was the first company in the world to lose $1 trillion in value, Bloomberg reported.
Amazon's most visible sign of retreat was the planned layoffs, which the company has confirmed will happen without giving the number of employees it plans to cut. Estimates in new reports range from 10,000 to 20,000 people who will lose their Amazon jobs in the coming months, but that's just the most recent glimpse of trouble. Amazon began telling investors in October 2021 that it had built up its warehousing and air freight capacity too much in response to early pandemic demand.
The middle of this year started to reveal casualties elsewhere in the company. Amazon shut down its physical bookstores and some Amazon Go convenience store locations. It jettisoned its Amazon Care health care service on doubts it would ever be profitable. And departments in charge of customer favorites like Alexa-powered devices took a disproportionate hit from the layoffs so far.
Full article: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/amazons-big-year-of-thinking-small/
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