But in early 2001, the effort started to gain traction. Amazon signed a deal with the book chain Borders, which had blundered by building a massive distribution facility outside Nashville for online orders before realizing it needed smaller, geographically dispersed warehouses to get books to customers quickly and inexpensively. A few months later, Amazon agreed to run AOL’s shopping channel in return for a much-needed $100 million investment. Amazon also signed a deal to carry the inventory of retailer Circuit City, helping to add additional selection to the sparsely furnished shelves of
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Amazon basically cornered distribution to create a massive moat traditional B&M retailers were too inept to copy and startups were too undercaitalized to build. Being early with lots of available capital and having the customer focused insight that buying anything and receiving it quickly was key to winning made Amazon what it is.
