Amazon is the world’s largest online retailer and a company that completely changed how everyone shops. Amazon has grown to become a massive company that offers just about any product you can think of and offers even more with the Amazon Prime paid service. The company has built up very nicely and expanded into all of the right areas to completely dominate a bunch of different industries, but they’ve had to make some big time acquisitions in order to get there. Here are the five biggest acquisitions made by Amazon.
5. Audible.com – $300 Million
Audible is a huge online audio book seller that is very popular and offers the best collection out there. In 2008, Amazon purchased the company for $300 million which gave them access to the entire catalog and a new product to include on the website. Amazon tries to get everything digitally available that it can, so when users purchase movies, TV, or audio books, it will be instant and not through the mail.
4. Love Film – $317 Million
LoveFilm is an online based DVD rental service that had recently gone from sending out DVDs to an online streaming site exactly like Netflix. The company was popular over in Europe with 1.6 million subscribers but now would become a part of the Amazon empire. The company paid $317 million to acquire Love Film in hopes that the addition of a digital streaming service to their website would increase the amount of Amazon Prime subscribers.
3. Quidsi, Inc. – $545 Million
In 2010 Amazon acquired Quidsi for $545 million. The company is known for its two websites diapers.com and soap.com which are major sellers of household items. Quidsi saw a ton of rapid revenue come in and became very valuable because they were one of the top online retailers for that household industry. Amazon acquiring them makes sense because it will provide them with an entire new array of products for the household section.
2. Kiva Systems, Inc. – $775 Million
Kiva Systems, Inc. is a company that builds robots to move items around warehouses with minimal human interaction or guidance. Amazon is constantly expanding it’s product amount and needs to stay as organized as possible in order to ship out their items in a timely manner. Purchasing Kiva Systems will provide them with the best robots for warehouse operations. Amazon purchased the company in 2012 for $775 million, there second largest deal ever.
1. Zappos – $1.2 Billion
Amazon’s largest acquisition was the online shoe retailer in 2009; Zappos.com. The company is the largest online shoe retailer and brings in millions each year, so this was a huge acquisition for Amazon that really pays off. Although they put out $1.2 billion, Zappos’ products are now all in the Amazon listings which upgraded their shoe products a ton.
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