Amazon.com 2013 Annual Report Download - page 7

year, we expanded that capability so customers can also sign in using their Amazon account credentials, saving
them the annoyance of needing to remember yet another account name and password. It’s convenient for the
customer and a business builder for the merchant. Cymax Stores, the online furniture retailer, has seen
tremendous success with Login and Pay. It now accounts for 20% of their orders, tripling their new account
registrations, and increasing purchase conversion 3.15% in the first three months. This example isn’t unusual.
We are seeing results like these with many partners, and the team is excited and encouraged. You should look for
more in 2014.
Amazon Smile
In 2013 we launched Amazon Smile – a simple way for customers to support their favorite charitable
organizations every time they shop. When you shop at smile.amazon.com, Amazon donates a portion of the
purchase price to the charity of your choice. You’ll find the same selection, prices, shipping options, and Prime
eligibility on smile.amazon.com as you do on Amazon.com – you’ll even find your same shopping cart and wish
lists. In addition to the large, national charities you would expect, you can also designate your local children’s
hospital, your school’s PTA, or practically any other cause you might like. There are almost a million charities to
choose from. I hope you’ll find your favorite on the list.
The Mayday Button
“Not only is the device awesome but the Mayday feature is absolutely FANTASTIC!!!!! The Kindle team has hit
it out of the park with this one.”
“Just tried the mayday button on my hdx. 15 second response time…amazon has done it again. Thoroughly
impressed.”
Nothing gives us more pleasure at Amazon than “reinventing normal” – creating inventions that customers
love and resetting their expectations for what normal should be. Mayday reimagines and revolutionizes the idea
of on-device tech support. Tap the Mayday button, and an Amazon expert will appear on your Fire HDX and can
co-pilot you through any feature by drawing on your screen, walking you through how to do something yourself,
or doing it for you – whatever works best. Mayday is available 24x7, 365 days a year, and our response time goal
is 15 seconds or less. We beat that goal – with an average response time of only 9 seconds on our busiest day,
Christmas.
A few of the Maydays have been amusing. Mayday Tech Advisors have received 35 marriage proposals
from customers. 475 customers have asked to talk to Amy, our Mayday television personality. 109 Maydays have
been customers asking for assistance with ordering a pizza. By a slim margin, Pizza Hut wins customer
preference over Domino’s. There are 44 instances where the Mayday Tech Advisor has sung Happy Birthday to
the customer. Mayday Tech Advisors have been serenaded by customers 648 times. And 3 customers have asked
for a bedtime story. Pretty cool.
I hope that gives you some sense of the scope of our opportunity and initiatives, as well the inventive spirit
and push for exceptional quality with which they’re undertaken. I should underscore again that this is a subset.
There are many programs I’ve omitted in this letter that are just as promising, consequential, and interesting as
those I’ve highlighted.
We have the good fortune of a large, inventive team and a patient, pioneering, customer-obsessed culture –
great innovations, large and small, are happening everyday on behalf of customers, and at all levels throughout
the company. This decentralized distribution of invention throughout the company – not limited to the company’s
senior leaders – is the only way to get robust, high-throughput innovation. What we’re doing is challenging and
fun – we get to work in the future.
Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It’s not optional. We understand that and believe in failing
early and iterating until we get it right. When this process works, it means our failures are relatively small in size