written by
Mike Todaro

UNBELIEVEABLE: Who Knew Amazon Owned All This?

Editorial 2 min read

We all know what a behemoth Amazon has become, and for AAPN and its members, its moves in the world of apparel make for especially interesting observation.

Buzzfeed is not normally where you would head for apparel news, but they are very good at lists, and the list contained in this article is quite astonishing, as it details some (probably not all, as Amazon does like to keep secrets) the businesses the company owns, including more than two dozen apparel providers!

These Are All the Businesses You Never Knew Were Owned by Amazon
This is everything (we know of) owned by “The Everything Store.”
Leticia Miranda, BuzzFeed News Reporter, July 5, 2019

Everything about Amazon in 2019 is inconceivably big: Amazon will make up an estimated 38% of the US e-commerce market this year, according to the online commerce research firm eMarketer, and already dominates 67% of the online books, music, and video market; 46% of the online computer and electronics market; 45% of the online toy market; and 34% of online furniture sales. And with more than $25 billion in revenue just from Amazon Web Services last year, Amazon is the world’s largest cloud services provider.

Its sheer size and influence has caught the attention of regulators and lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who proposed a plan to break up Amazon and other technology companies in March. In its defense, Amazon said it makes up just 4% of all US retail sales.

But taken as a whole, Amazon is much more than a retail platform. The company — which originally incorporated on July 5, 1994, under the business name “Cadabra” and started selling books under the new name Amazon on July 16, 1995 — has expanded into a complex web of businesses and subsidiaries that make it easy to walk into and difficult to walk out of. Its reach stretches from review sites like Goodreads to shoe sales on Zappos to devices like Ring to baby clothing sold in its marketplace to educational tools for teachers, like entire math curriculums.

Few corners of business are untouched by Amazon. You might be shopping on an Amazon-owned site even if you don’t think you are, or be looking at a website or using an app that uses one of many of Amazon’s web services.

We compiled this list of all Amazon’s businesses and subsidiaries in honor of the company’s anniversary. In addition to the countless companies Amazon has acquired and services it has launched, we found Amazon has more than 80 private-label brands across all categories, including a dozen women’s clothing brands and (inexplicably) seven denim brands, showing how the company has expanded quietly, but at an aggressive pace. Quartz reported that Amazon has either been awarded or applied for 800 trademarks. Read More

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