When he came on board, Amazon was struggling with a business model that wasn't working and a clientele that was flocking to new websites and product lines.
Groupon has faced other serious challenges to its business model from huge players like Amazon and local newspapers who now offer daily deals to their advertisers.
"The traditional retailers are still doing business the old way while Amazon has reinvented the model, " says Sucharita Mulpuru, retail analyst at Forrester Research.
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Amazon's rise to some extent reflects elements of its business model.
Investors fear its business model, which is increasingly copied by competitors including Amazon, may be unsustainable.
Whatever the reason, Amazon will have to hope that its gambit works, because its business model has at least one worrying downside.
Next came Amazon with the Kindle, an entirely new device, and a new business model.
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Anderson said in an interview Thursday that the probe had wounded morale at the electronics chain, which is struggling to adapt its big-box business model to new competitive threats from online retailers such as Amazon.com Inc.
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If IBM is serious about this business, it is almost certain to make a run at an Amazon-type model sometime soon.
"The indications are that the internet is giving rise to huge operations like Amazon.com, Sony and Time Warner because the beauty of the internet (business model) is that it cuts out the middlemen, " he said.
Amazon with its background in retail which is also a price conscious market should be comfortable with the business model.
Amazon redefined the opportunity and captured it with a very different financial model in which its suppliers helped finance its business.
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