Amazon: Welcome To The Jungle

Ghosts of retail past watch as the e-commerce giant expands its territory.

- Patrick Alcantara

The clock is ticking fast for brick-and-mortars as Amazon aggressively expands its selection from books to fashion and, most recently, groceries. While the Seattle-based firm enjoys its position as the frontrunner in reforming the shopping culture, each tick echoes louder and louder for physical retailers.

In 1994, Amazon founder and top dog Jeff Bezos thought he had failed to take advantage of the internet, a rapidly growing medium at the time, to help him cash in more money than what he was making. Shortly after his car drive from New York to Seattle, his business plan for an online based shopping center had been plotted out, dragging him away from his well-paying job to officially establish Amazon in 1995. Twenty-two years later, he stands just behind Bill Gates as the richest man in the world with an $86.7 billion net worth in his pocket.

Bezos has made it clear that he’s never playing the catch-up game anymore. Today, brick-and-mortar stores have gone back to the drawing board to find the right pieces and stay in Amazon’s peripheral view. In a recent report, more than half a thousand of retailers cite shutting down as the stronger (and safer) rope to hold on to rather than to cross the zip line heading to a different dimension from the feisty Amazon.

THE LINEUP

HHGregg, an appliances and electronics company founded in 1955, pulled the plug when it hit the bottom in May 2017 after failing to respond to this day’s modern way of shopping. Although a failed attempt to spread their scope to a nationwide scale, Amazon’s appeal to modern lifestyle could possibly share a slice in its death.