Amazon Worldwide – How many employees will it have?

Amazon grows stronger. It already employs 540,000. employees all over the world

Amazon is currently the most valuable brand in the world. In January 2020, experts from Brand Finance placed it in the first place in the Global 500 ranking for the third time in a row. Amazon was valued at $ 220.8 billion. Google is second on the podium, valued at USD 159.7 billion, losing 61.1 billion to the leader. In 2019, Amazon’s net profit amounted to as much as $ 11.6 billion. Sales alone increased by 20 percent compared to 2018 and amounted to USD 280.5 billion.

Statistica data Amazon

According to to Statistica data Amazon already employs over 798,000 employees. In 2018, 14,000 people worked for the giant in Poland alone. These numbers keep growing. In 2019, Amazon accounted for 13.3% of the global e-commerce market. If we exclude the United States from that, it has a 5.6% stake. This quite eloquently shows how powerful this company is in the US. In its home country, Amazon can boast a 48% share of e-commerce sales. Interest in subscribing to Amazon Prime is growing spectacularly. According to data from July 2020, 150 million users used the Amazon Prime subscription. Interestingly, apart from the US, Germany is a huge market for Amazon. Sales in this country accounted for almost 1/3 of international net sales in 2017. Amazon accounts for 29% of all e-commerce in our western neighbors.

Amazon is famous for amazing discounts on products that even have an attractive base price. Why is it like that? The most important reason, of course, is that Amazon is the biggest player on the market. He is able to purchase really huge amounts of specific goods directly from the manufacturer or distributor, thanks to which he gets them at much lower prices than smaller stores. This is evident especially during promotions like Black Friday. Then many products, especially electronic ones, are sold practically at production cost. However, everything has a price – both users and Amazon itself benefit from it, which is building its image and acquiring new customers. In addition to selling directly through Amazon, the website includes a lot of smaller companies, which, as part of partnership cooperation, can offer their products on the platform. This gives them access to millions of customers and gives Amazon an even greater range.

A slightly darker side of Amazon, which has been talked about more than once and which may also be important in the case of final product prices, is the situation of employees. The greatest number of complaints is filed by employees in warehouses, also those who work for us in Poland. The giant has been accused many times in recent years of almost inhuman working conditions. However, the situation is slowly clearing up, and Amazon, in order not to lose employees, offers more and more salaries and is expanding benefit packages.

Amazon delivers parcels mainly via courier companies. In Poland, we usually meet representatives from DHL, DPD and FedEx at the door, as well as Pocztex and UPS employees from time to time. Everything depends on the regions and, of course, internal agreements concluded between the giant and suppliers. However, the situation is changing in the United States. There, in 2018, the e-commerce giant purchased 20,000 vans and launched the Amazon Logistics program. It is aimed at smaller transport companies that could become a “partner” and deliver goods. The program, however, is still in the early stage of development, but looking at Amazon’s logistics needs, it is possible that the company will develop it in the future.

Amazon payments

Amazon offers payments in the currency appropriate for the country from which the product is shipped (euro, dollars, pounds, etc.), as well as in PLN, if the store offers shipment of the goods to Poland. The available payment options are classic card, Przelewy24 and internal Amazon balance. When paying the price converted into PLN by the store, we must take into account the exchange rate set by Amazon. In general, it is higher than the current market rate, even adding a currency conversion fee at some banks. When paying the amount in euro from a PLN account, the bank is responsible for the conversion. Here, you should check the amount of the currency conversion fee in the contract. It is no different when paying with a card connected to a PLN account. Here, the commissions are different, because the card operator is involved. It all depends on the bank and

As mentioned above, there is a growing interest in Amazon Prime. This is a premium subscription, offered by Amazon. We can pay for it on a monthly or annual basis. Prime gives you access to a multitude of services and amenities. Unfortunately, a large part of it is not yet available in our country, which makes it difficult to clearly answer the question whether Amazon Prime pays off. In Poland, with Amazon Prime, we can count on Prime Video, Twitch Prime and Prime Photos services. Prime also gives us access to special offers. Prime Video is a dynamically developing VOD service, offering many materials in 4K resolution. Content is constantly increasing and this service is slowly growing into a giant that can engage in an equal fight with Netflix. We can buy Prime Video without the entire Amazon Prime offer. Access costs 6 euros a month, and new users can use the website for 3 euro per month for six months. It is worth remembering that not all films on the site have a Polish translation. Twitch Prime is a service built in cooperation with the Twitch streaming service. Mainly players will be interested in it. It allows you to subscribe to a selected creator from Twitch, thanks to which we can watch his broadcasts without advertising and gain a number of bonuses. Twitch Prime also means access to add-ons in computer games, as well as a package of new games every month. Importantly, Twitch Prime is included in a separate Prime Video subscription. Prime Photos is a virtual disk that uses Amazon’s cloud. While in the free version of Photos anyone with an Amazon account can put 5 GB of images, with a Prime subscription we can store an unlimited number of photos.

Amazon Services

It is also worth mentioning the growing Amazon Alexa virtual voice assistant, which is already hosted in many homes of US citizens. This is another manifestation of Jeff Bezos’ long-term thinking. The businessman does not intend to rest on his laurels and is constantly looking for new niches that he could conquer with his new products and services.

In Poland, Allegro is currently the undisputed leader on the e-commerce market. The website’s position is so strong that it has basically become a monopolist, and most sellers – especially smaller ones – are doomed to use its services. And they don’t like it at all – there are many complaints online about the way the giant runs its business, constantly introducing new requirements for sellers and regularly increasing sales commissions. Even the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK), which is currently proceeding with the case, became interested in the case. Hence, Amazon will have to compete with its Polish counterpart not only for customers, but also for sellers who would like to sell their goods through it. In an ideal scenario, rivalry between services will force them to offer better conditions for both.