How Amazon Actually Makes Its Money

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who isn’t an Amazon user. In fact, most households have an active Amazon Prime account, with access to e-books, movies, 2-day shipping, and an endless supply of retail items. From its beginnings as an online bookseller to being worth nearly $430 billion, Amazon had covered a lot of ground to get where it is today. So, how does it make its money?

There’s more to that answer than simply “from all the stuff.” Though the retail portion accounts for 67% of Amazon’s revenue, there’s much more going on under the hood.

Not only is Amazon a retail giant, its also an incredibly successful movie studio. Amazon’s own video production budget is $4.5. billion, over two times HBO’s budget and their streaming service rivals streaming kingpins like Netflix and Hulu.

Independent sellers on Amazon can also be successful; 40% of product sales on the Amazon Marketplace come from third party sellers. Whether you sell 40 items a month or 400 items a month, Amazon can store, pack, and ship your items for you while only retaining 10–15% of each transaction.

Curious about how Amazon became such a retail superpower, and how you can get a cut of it? This infographic has all you need to know about the life of Amazon plus some ideas about what its future could hold.