Obstacles are only Obstacles if you think they’re Obstacles... otherwise they are Opportunities.

When you think of Amazon.com, you think of an internet shopping magnate… and you would be correct, however something very interesting happened in the past couple of years… SHOP.COM and Market America.

I just finished watching Jeff Bezos’ Biography, a 40 minute documentary on the man who created Amazon.com. When you watch this very interesting story of a visionary you begin to really understand and appreciate what JR Ridinger envisioned way back in the very early days of Market America, “The Mall without Walls”. And over the years, what did he wind up owning… actually, where did we wind up owning? “The Mall without Walls”! Ever wonder where genius comes from? How about sheer determination in doing something out of the ordinary. Jeff Bezos has it and JR Ridinger has it, and because of JR Ridinger many of us have a gift to build upon the opportunity that came along as a result of Amazon.com, Bill Gates, Yahoo.com and Oak Investment giving up SHOP.COM.

There has never been a documentary done about JR Ridinger, and there should be, but watching Jeff Bezos’ biography followed by reading up others who sold SHOP.COM such as Bill Gates, Yahoo.com and Oak Investment Partners, it really hits home to what we have at our finger tips.
I came across a very interesting statement on Google.com/Finance: “SHOP.COM lets Web browsers do it till they drop. The company pulls together products from more than 2,000 merchants (including Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Gap, and Macy's), making them available to consumers in a single, convenient online location. It operates e-commerce sites in Canada, the UK, and the US. SHOP.COM's precursor firm Altura International, a builder, developer, and manager of e-commerce sites for catalog and mail order retailers, was founded by Lee Lorenzen in 1997. Investors in SHOP.COM have included Bill Gates, Amazon.com, and venture capital firm Oak Investment Partners. Internet marketing firm Market America acquired SHOP.COM in late 2010.”

Did you know:

• SHOP.COM developed and created dozens of shopping portals including Yahoo Shopping, Excite, Quixtar / Amway, Shaklee, GM, Visa, Verizon, Sears?
• In 2010, Zscaler Research firm reported that SHOP.COM was America’s 4th Largest Online Shopping Site. The graph on the right were the top 10 shopping sites.

Today, thousands of UnFranchise owners have taken up where Jeff left off in what everyone at Amazon.com focused on in the being “Customer Centric”, and added several unique and critical elements to making SHOP.COM even more competitive with other sites including “Comparison Shopping”, Personal “Shopping Consultants” along with many high tech tools making it easier for consumers to find, save and earn cashback on millions of products and services.

One of the takeaways from Jeff Bezo’s biography was when his mother said her father, Lawrence Preston Gise, would tell Jeff over and over:

“Obstacles are only obstacles if you think they’re obstacles, otherwise they are opportunities”. 

Market America epitomizes that very declaration by turning obstacles into opportunities at every level.