Amazon launched its first online bookstore in 1994 for which it required IS for enabling online purchase of a variety of books by the user. First innovation was in 1996 when it integrated its IS with sellers called Associates Program, so that sellers could feature Amazon’s products on their websites and earn revenue. Another innovative feature of Amazon was 1-click shopping which is a trademark of Amazon. Another major innovation came with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002, where using cloud services, other users can lease time on Amazon’s infrastructure and Amazon offers variety of payment options. Another feature added to its IS was in 2003 when consumers could search the contents of the book. The kindle is a major innovation which makes Amazon a vendor of tablets, online music and video. It runs its own currency Amazon coins, a recent introduction in 2013, which lets the consumer buy rapidly and easily from Amazon. a) Discuss the strategies followed by Amazon for online retail business. How is Amazon applying its information systems to manage the online retail business? b) Cloud services are helping Amazon in sharing its excess infrastructure capacity. Discuss the various features provided by Amazon cloud services that are helping the company to attract a large number of customers.