Why is Amazon so customer focused?

It's based on the bottom dollar. The more they can keep customers happy, the more money they make.

Everything is about providing more value, because the more value people get from you and the more you service others. Then the money will always follow, they are just trying to make a connection with getting people more value so they spend more time shopping up there

Amazon’s vision statement is “To be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” This vision statement underscores the organisation’s main aim of becoming the best e-commerce company in the world. The following components or characteristics are emphasised in Amazon’s vision statement:

Global reach
Customer prioritization
Widest selection of products.

All makes perfect sense measured in dollars and cents.

Amazon doesn't worry about making money on their first (or even second sale) through you. Instead, Amazon wants you to become a customer for life.
And a customer for life is one who appreciates great customer service, fast product delivery and "The customer is always right." (so, if you're a seller on Amazon, you will want to keep this last one in mind...I myself have been burned before by this one - and know of a few other that have been burned as well).
And a customer for life (a patriot if you will) will buy as much as possible through Amazon...products, service (Amazon Prime, Amazon music, Amazon digital book subscription, Amazon Cloud Storage).

Think of them like a devoted Apple user...

It's not.

Amazon's focus on the customer is very carefully calculated in order to create trust (the ultimate factor in ecommerce) and volume (by building the biggest ecommerce search engine possible).

If you read "The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon" you will come to understand the basic motives and underlying philosophy of amazon. This philosophy emerges in a number of business principles, for example, if you sell on amazon then you are not allowed to offer your product anywhere else cheaper than on amazon itself.

Amazon is heavily weighted towards the purchaser (a good thing) and can be hugely dogmatic towards the seller (an even better thing, generally). This results in attracting huge numbers of customers (Prime membership alone has now surpassed 70 million).

For my own part, i've built a large and very successful ecommerce business on amazon (and now elsewhere too). Amazon can be tough on sellers but, ultimately, it's for everyone's benefit. I attest to that.

Good luck with your ventures.

Here's a great story for learning, inspiration and answer to your question!

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, while learning about 'Books' Business' wanted to learn "How to Sell Books". So he attended an introductory 4 day lecture in Portland by American Bookseller Association. During that he met one of the instructors named Richard Howorth. Richard told him the story of how far you've to go for customer service.

One day, while Richard was in his office of the bookstore, manager came to him and told that one lady was being ridiculously argumentative about something.

'You gotta come and deal with her, Richard!' he told him. So Richard went downstairs and asked.

"How may I help you?"

"Well, my car was parked outside your store, when the guy in the balcony of the flat threw mud on my car from upstairs. My husband cleaned up my car just this morning. Who's gonna clean it now?" said that Lady.

"Can I wash your car?" asked Richard, to which she said Yes, please. And both of them drove to a nearby car-cleaning service, which unfortunately was closed that day. Richard then said, "Let's go to my home." and they drove to his home.

Richard Howorth, a senior instructor at ABA, who was the owner of one of the largest Bookstore in the county, and owner of Square Book in Mississippi right now, took bucket of water and a rag out from his garage and cleaned her car.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, said "That day I realized how far you have to go to please a customer. And then I decided to make sure Amazon was customer centric."

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, said "That day I realized how far you have to go to please a customer. And then I decided to make sure Amazon was customer centric."

If simple -- if customer is happy & satisfied it refer new for ++ feedback