Bezos felt that word of mouth could deliver customers to Amazon. He wanted to funnel the saved marketing dollars into improving the customer experience and accelerating the flywheel. And as it happened, at the time, Amazon was conducting an experiment that was actually working this way—free shipping. During the 2000 and 2001 holidays, Amazon offered free shipping to customers who placed orders of a hundred dollars or more. The promotion was expensive but clearly boosted sales. Customer surveys showed that shipping costs were one of the biggest hurdles to ordering online. Amazon hadn’t yet
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