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Chapter 12  Digital business service implementation and optimisation

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this is a miniscule amount compared with today’s bil-

lions of dollar turnover. The important point was that this 

was the start of a focus on metrics which can be seen 

through the description of Matt Round’s work later in 

this case study.

In their 2013 Annual report Amazon explained their 

ongoing approach to experimentation. They explain 

how they have created their own internal experimenta-

tion platform called ‘Weblab’ which  they use to evalu-

ate improvements to their websites and products. In 

2013 they ran 1,976 Weblabs worldwide, up from 1,092 

in 2012, and 546 in 2011. One recent example of how 

they are applied is a new feature called ‘Ask an owner’.  

From a product page, customers can ask any ques-

tion related to the product, and Amazon route these 

questions to owners of the product who then supply 

an answer.