Online marketplace Amazon (AMZN  ) is making waves in multiple industries with aggressive moves. This appears to be a play at expanding its services and challenging rivals Google (GOOG  ) and Apple (AAPL  ), as well as other e-retailers. While the company is perhaps most well known for its online marketplace, recent years have brought it to the forefront of the technology and entertainment industries with its online streaming service, Amazon Prime, as well as its investment in portable technology like its Fire tablets and voice command system Echo. But recent announcements suggest Amazon is developing products to further cement itself as the one-stop shop for consumers searching for goods and entertainment.

While audiences continue to forgo traditional cable companies to watch television online, there are few mainstream options to choose from that offer a complete Live TV experience over the internet. Many networks offer live streaming services in select markets across the United States, but there has yet to be a service that has aggregated these streams. Amazon hopes to change this by licensing streams from some of the United States' biggest networks like CBS (CBS  ) and NBCUniversal (CMCSA  ). With recent expansion into the television market with its Fire 4K television and Fire TV stick, Amazon can release a new streaming service to its customers with a simple software update.

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These efforts come on the heels of an Amazon-created controversy when the retailer announced that it would stop sales of Apple TV and Google Chromecast on its online marketplace, largely because Amazon's Prime Instant Streaming service is not easily available on either device. Amazon released a statement that argued its position with, "It's important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion"-yet it still sells other lesser-known devices that don't support its native streaming service. With many outraged and puzzled about the move, it seems that Amazon is taking a strong stance against some of its biggest rivals, perhaps in anticipation for the launch of its live streaming service.

Beyond streaming television, the company opened the "Handmade at Amazon" marketplace last week with over 80,000 items from 5,000 sellers across 60 countries in another aggressive move that this time challenges another online retailer, Etsy (ETSY  ). Etsy has done over $2 billion per year in sales in recent years, and Amazon's move positions the company to add a significant chunk from that market to its $75 billion per year in sales. The new "Handmade" section of Amazon has been designed to have a completely new feel compared to the rest of the retail behemoth's site, with a focus on the individuals creating the products and their story. Within the section, Amazon decided to start off with six main categories with the possibility of expanding upon further success: home, jewelry, artwork, stationery and party supplies, kitchen and dining, and baby.

In addition to Amazon's massive base of 285 million customers that dwarfs Etsy's 22 million, the company is allowing sellers to ship their products in mass to one of their distribution centers and Amazon will ship out each individual purchase. But one major downside is that while Etsy's fees include a 20-cent per item and a 3.5 percent cut of the sales, Amazon is taking 12 percent of sales. Whether the advantages outweigh the extra fee is yet to be seen, but Amazon is certainly positioning itself to appeal to a wide-range of Etsy's producers.

Over the past few months Amazon has made a number of surprisingly aggressive moves to grow its brand and customer base. And with its stock price hovering around $545 compared to last year's $305, it seems to be on a large expansion in hopes of capturing a chunk of the share in several of the most lucrative markets.