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Jeff Bezos has said that Amazon has had failures worth billions of dollars - here are some of the biggest ones
Jeff Bezos has said that Amazon has had failures worth billions of dollars - here are some of the biggest ones
Dennis GreenMar 12, 2019, 21:12 IST
AP/Ted S. Warren
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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has called the e-commerce giant "the best place in the world to fail."
He has famously instituted a culture where failure is an acceptable - even necessary - part of doing business.
That said, Amazon has had some spectacular failures over the years, resulting in billions of dollars in mistakes, according to Bezos.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos famously called the e-commerce giant "the best place in the world to fail" in his 2016 shareholder letter.
"What really matters is, companies that don't continue to experiment, companies that don't embrace failure, they eventually get in a desperate position where the only thing they can do is a Hail Mary bet at the very end of their corporate existence," Bezos told Business Insider's Henry Blodget in a 2014 interview.
Amazon's most successful initiatives would never have happened without some element of risk.
"I've made billions of dollars of failures at Amazon.com. Literally billions of dollars of failures," Bezos told Blodget. "None of those things are fun. But they also don't matter."
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We've catalogued some of Amazon's more high-profile failures through the years. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it offers a taste of Amazon's culture of failure.
"After much review, we came to the decision to discontinue our pop-up kiosk program, and are instead expanding Amazon Books and Amazon 4-star, where we provide a more comprehensive customer experience and broader selection," a spokesperson for Amazon said.
The stores were a place where customers interested in smart gadgets like Amazon's Echo or Fire TV could see how they worked in the real world before purchasing.
Dash Buttons
Dash buttons offered a way to reorder a consumable item on Amazon without having to think about it. Customers could link an item and preferred quantity to the button and press it whenever they needed more. The buttons could be mounted in cupboards or on top of washing machines.
Amazon stopped offering them for sale this year, but a spokesperson told CNET they were a rousing success in that they got customers used to not shopping with a screen.
"Dash button was an awesome stepping stone into the world of connected home," Amazon vice president Daniel Rausch said, later adding, "We never imagined a future where customers had 500 buttons in their home. We imagined a future where the home was taking care of itself, including replenishing everyday items that customers would rather not worry about."
Now that the AmazonBasics microwave can automatically reorder popcorn, there's simply no need for a separate $5 button.
Amazon Tap
The first Amazon Echo device to be discontinued by Amazon without a replacement, the Amazon Tap was a mobile version of its ultra-popular Alexa-enabled smart speakers. Amazon stopped selling the device near the end of 2018, and its product page on Amazon.com tells customers: "This device is no longer available, however Certified Refurbished Amazon Tap is refurbished, tested, and certified to look and work like new."
But as Amazon puts Alexa functionality in nearly everything, a portable device probably isn't as useful.
Customers could order items like snacks, drinks, and basic essentials from the Amazon app and use a barcode to access their purchase at designated Pickup locations. An Amazon employee would fill an Instant Pickup locker within minutes of the order being placed.
However, Amazon pulled the plug on the service, a company spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider in 2018. The company did not specify when the service ended.
Whole Foods 365
Whole Foods, a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon, announced earlier this year that it would not be moving forward with its Whole Foods 365-branded stores.
These stores were designed to cater to younger shoppers with aisles full of budget-friendly private-label goods.
Business Insider's Hayley Peterson reported in January that the brand would sunset, and that no new stores would carry the 365 name. The company cited a diminishing price difference between 365 and regular Whole Foods stores as a reason for the change.
Amazon Restaurants UK
Amazon Restaurants is a service that uses the same delivery workers as Amazon Prime Now, but to deliver fresh prepared food from restaurants.
In London, the service launched in 2016 and stopped in 2018. Amazon did not give a reason for the change, but it may have been due to the competitive food delivery market in the UK.
Amazon Fresh's Local Market Seller
Amazon Fresh is Amazon's fresh grocery delivery service — its answer to home-and-business grocery-delivery services like FreshDirect and Peapod.
Amazon acquired Quidsi for $545 million in 2010. Quidsi, founded by Marc Lore and Vinit Bharara, was the parent company of early 2000s e-commerce darling Diapers.com, which expanded into Soap.com, Wag.com, BeautyBar.com, Casa.com, and YoYo.com.
Lore went on to found Jet.com, which was later acquired by Walmart for more than $3 billion.
Endless.com
Amazon started fashion e-tailer Endless.com in 2007 as its first standalone online shopping brand outside of Amazon.com. It focused on shoes and accessories.
Unlike Endless.com, however, Myhabit.com does not forward visitors to Amazon.com/Fashion.
Amazon Webstore
Once upon a time, Amazon had a platform for other small and medium businesses to easily set up their own store and start selling online directly to customers. In 2015, Amazon announced it was shutting that down within a year.
Amazon later partnered with Shopify to move those customers to that company's services.
Amazon Destinations
Amazon also had a hotel-booking website called Amazon Destinations. It was intended to be used to plan quick getaways to cities like New York or Seattle.
Amazon Local was also shut down in 2015. A "daily deals" site similar to Groupon and LivingSocial, Local's end was not too surprising, as the two other sites saw spectacular rises and subsequently drastic falls.
Amazon Wallet
Amazon Wallet died before it ever got off the ground. Launched in 2014, it was a standalone Android app that stored gift cards and loyalty cards for different stores.
Amazon Local Register enabled small brick-and-mortar businesses to accept credit-card payments through Amazon's payment processing with a card reader that attached to a smartphone, similar to a Square card reader.
Critics consider the Fire Phone Amazon's first and largest failure. In October of the same year, Amazon announced a $170 million write down "primarily related to Fire phone inventory valuation and supplier commitment costs" in its quarterly earnings report.
Amazon WebPay
WebPay was Amazon's version of PayPal in that it facilitated payments between people. It shut down in 2014, eliminated the person-to-person payments, and became Amazon Pay: a service that facilitates payments between shoppers and merchants.
Amazon Askville
Askville was like Amazon's version of Yahoo or Google Answers, but users were encouraged to answer questions through a gamified process.
The service ended in 2013, and the archive of the message board that lived afterwards has been taken down as of 2019.
Amazon PayPhrase
With PayPhrase, Amazon customers could create a unique string of words that they would enter every time they wanted to check out quickly. It would be tied to a pre-selected payment option and address, so customers could just enter the phrase and PIN and they were done, similar to Amazon one-click.
