"What makes an e-commerce site habit-forming? (particularly Amazon)"

Good morning from San Francisco. Time to answer the question of the day. Thanks, Faheem. Good question. But we all know the answer is pretty obvious, right? It's obviously this crazy website called United Nuclear that sells uranium or fragments online. Because who doesn't need some uranium or fragments? Okay. Of course it's Amazon. I mean, it's the proverbial everything store and they have everything including. So what is it about Amazon.com that makes it so habit forming? Let's take a look at Amazon through the lens of the hook model. If you don't know what I'm talking about when I say hook model, then go ahead and read my book, please. And what do you know? There it is. So what is it about Amazon's hook that makes it so sticky? There's a few things I think Amazon really does well, starting with Amazon's triggers. Now Amazon has really nailed internal triggers. They started off, of course, with books, and then they expanded to include just about everything you can imagine. So today the internal trigger that Amazon is addressing is basically wanting stuff, whether that stuff is real, like books and physical things, or virtual things like Amazon Music as well as through their prime subscription. Now you can get movies that are a big competitor for Netflix as well. So Amazon's strategy has really been to provide a solution to pretty much anything you want. To the extent that they will even show you ads for where you can buy the same product somewhere else. That's pretty amazing. How many websites are so committed to forming a consumer habit. They're willing to advertise for their competitors. And that all has to do with the fact that they want to create this association with the internal trigger of wanting things and their solution, Amazon.com so today Amazon's big competitor from a habit forming perspective is no longer anyone in the E commerce space. I think it's actually putting things down in your shopping list. Today Amazon wants you to just go ahead and put something inside your Amazon cart or save it for later in your wish list, then writing it down on a piece of paper. And that's where Amazon wins. So that's a bit about how Amazon really nails the internal triggers. There's a lot more they do, right? I mean, I could go on and on about how they've nailed actions. I mean, I could go on and on about how they've made the actions tremendously easier. Look at their dash buttons. Look at the easy checkout process that Amazon implemented. Look at their move into the Internet of things with Alexa. I mean, how amazing is that? Is that going to make the process of ordering even easier. Heck yeah it is. Of course variable rewards is the act of actually shopping around, right? Scrolling is all about rewards of the hunt and then investment. Think about all the data they collect to make the service better and better over time. So the more they know about you by collecting your data on what you like to buy, the better the product gets over time. And it gets stickier and stickier with use until one day you realize, wait a minute, Amazon sells uranium ore as well. This was fun. Thanks for your question. Please send more via Snapchat. And of course, check out my website nearandfar.com as well as follow me on Twitter. Thanks.