Amazon. We hear about them all the time nowadays. They’re taking over the world, and it’s pretty clear. 

Founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, Amazon started as a small online bookstore based in Bezos’ garage, according to CNN. After opening a new location in 2007, Amazon started to grow.

Presently, the company offers many services, some of which include online shopping, movie-streaming, personal styling, and more.

However, something that people don’t usually talk about is that as Amazon has grown it has basically taken over the retail industry. Personally, I find that it’s getting harder and harder to buy something that isn’t connected to Amazon in some way.

According to CNBC, when consumers are ready to buy a product, 74% of them lean towards Amazon. This means that about 3 of 4 people choose Amazon as their go-to for purchasing goods.

This sizeable percentage reported by CNBC just further proves the advancement of Amazon in the retail world and foreshadows its eventual takeover. Not only has the corporation widened the variety of online options, but it has also played an enormous role in increasing the on-street availability of products for consumers.

In fact, in 2018, Amazon opened its very own grocery store. 

The futuristic Amazon Go store is comparable to your everyday Safeway or Trader Joe’s except for the fact that it features new forms of technology, some of which have never been seen before. Facial recognition, for example, allows for a line-free system to make shopping both more convenient and faster, as person, object, and pose detection lets the systems know what the customer is buying. 

According to Forbes, Amazon Go has proven its convenience and plans to increase its amount of stores.

"More than a year after Amazon opened its first Amazon Go cashier-less convenience store in its Seattle hometown, packed with technologies similar to those used in driverless cars, initial customer feedback to Amazon Go's entry in New York in May appears to confirm there’s a real appetite for the concept, which has also expanded to San Francisco and Chicago," Andria Cheng wrote in an article for Forbes.

This only goes to show the enlarged variety that Amazon has to offer, such that no other company possesses.

Likewise, Amazon’s dependability offers something like never before. It is, therefore, hard to break away from something so convenient and dependable.

For teenagers, Amazon is a great way to get school supplies and even keep up with the latest fashion trends. Yet, such convenience comes at a price.

Big bookstores, large retailers, and even big chains like Macy’s or Target are all in jeopardy of losing popularity as Amazon grows around them. Small ice cream shops, clothing boutiques, even local grocery markets that make each community unique could go out of business. 

Amazon by Lora Simakova

As a teenager, it’s hard to imagine what life would be like without things like that we love in our community.

However, although Amazon is on its path to taking over the retail industries, having your nails done, getting a haircut, and hanging out with your friends is something Amazon will likely never be able to do.