Amazon.com, Inc. () is a US-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is the world's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of the runner up, Staples, Inc., as of January 2010.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994 and the site went online in 1995. The company was originally named Cadabra, Inc., but the name was changed when it was discovered that people sometimes heard the name as "Cadaver". The name Amazon.com was chosen because the Amazon River is one of the largest rivers in the world and so the name suggests large size, and also in part because it starts with "A" and therefore would show up near the beginning of alphabetical lists. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVDs, CDs, MP3 downloads, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, and toys. Amazon has established separate websites in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Japan, and China. It also provides international shipping to certain countries for some of its products.
History
Amazon was founded in 1995, spurred by what Bezos called "regret minimization framework", his effort to fend off regret for not staking a claim in the Internet gold rush. Company lore says Bezos wrote the business plan while he and his wife drove from New York to Seattle, although that account is disputed. Bezos flew from New York to Texas, where he picked up a car from a family member, and then drove from Texas to Seattle.
The company began as an online bookstore; while the largest brick-and-mortar bookstores and mail-order catalogs for books might offer 200,000 titles, an online bookstore could offer more. Bezos named the company "Amazon" after the world's largest river. Since 2000, Amazon's logotype is an arrow leading from A to Z, representing customer satisfaction (as it forms a smile); a goal was to have every product in the alphabet.
Amazon was incorporated in 1994, in the state of Washington. In July 1995, the company began service and sold its first book on amazon.com - Douglas Hofstadter's ''Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought''. In 1996, it was reincorporated in Delaware. Amazon issued its initial public offering of stock on May 15, 1997, trading under the NASDAQ stock exchange symbol AMZN, at an IPO price of US$18.00 per share ($1.50 after three stock splits in the late 1990s).
Barnes and Noble filed a lawsuit on 12 May 1997, alleging that Amazon's claim to be "The world's largest bookstore" was false. They asserted "[It] isn't a bookstore at all. It's a book broker." The suit was later settled out of court. Amazon continued to call itself "The world's largest bookstore." This was followed by Walmart filing suit on 16 October 1998, alleging that Amazon had stolen trade secrets by hiring former Walmart executives. Although this suit was settled out of court, it led to work restrictions and reassignment of the former Walmart executives.
Amazon's initial business plan was unusual: the company did not expect a profit for four to five years. Its "slow" growth provoked stockholder complaints that the company was not reaching profitability fast enough. When the dot-com bubble burst, and many e-companies went out of business, Amazon persevered, and finally turned its first profit in the fourth quarter of 2001: $5 million or 1¢ per share, on revenues of more than $1 billion, but the modest profit was important in demonstrating the business model could be profitable. In 1999, ''Time'' magazine named Bezos Person of the Year, recognizing the company's success in popularizing online shopping.
Acquisitions
1998: Bookpages.co.uk, a UK online book retailer, which became Amazon UK on October 15, 1998.
1999:
Internet Movie Database (IMDb).;
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based
PlanetAll, a reminder service; Sunnyvale-based Junglee.com, an
XML-based
data mining startup
Alexa Internet, Accept.com, and Exchange.com
2003: online music retailer
CD Now.
2004:
Joyo.com, a Chinese e-commerce website.
2005: BookSurge, a
print on demand company, and
Mobipocket.com, an
eBook software company. CreateSpace.com (formerly CustomFlix), a
Scotts Valley, California-based distributor of on-demand DVDs. CreateSpace has since expanded to include on-demand books, CDs, and video.
2006:
Shopbop, a
Madison, Wisconsin-based retailer of designer clothing and accessories for women.
2007:
dpreview.com, a London-based digital photography review website; Brilliance Audio, the largest independent publisher of
audiobooks in the United States.
2008:
Audible.com; Fabric.com;
Box Office Mojo;
AbeBooks;
Shelfari; (including a 40% stake in
LibraryThing and whole ownership of Bookfinder.com, Gojaba.com, and
FillZ);
Reflexive Entertainment, a casual video game development company.
2009:
Zappos, an online shoe and apparel retailer
Lexcycle
2010: Touchco.,
Woot,
Quidsi, Buyvip,
Amie Street.
2011:
Lovefilm,
The Book Depository
Investments
2008:
Engine Yard, a Ruby-on-Rails platform-as-a-service (
PaaS) company.
2010:
LivingSocial, a local deal site.
Spinoffs
2004:
A9.com, a company focused on researching and building innovative
technology.
2004: Lab126, developers of integrated consumer electronics such as the Kindle.
2007: Endless.com, an e-commerce brand focusing on shoes.
Merchant partnerships
The website
CDNOW is powered and hosted by Amazon. Until June 30, 2006, typing
ToysRUs.com into a browser would similarly bring up amazon.com's Toys & Games tab; however, this relationship was terminated as the result of a lawsuit. Amazon also hosted and ran the website for
Borders bookstores, but this ceased in 2008.
Amazon.com powers and operates retail web sites for Target, Sears Canada, Benefit Cosmetics, bebe Stores, Timex, Marks & Spencer, Mothercare, and Lacoste. For a growing number of enterprise clients, currently including the UK merchants Marks & Spencer, Benefit Cosmetics' UK entity, edeals.com, and Mothercare, Amazon provides a unified multichannel platform where a customer can seamlessly interact with some people that they call the retail website, standalone in-store terminals, or phone-based customer service agents. Amazon Web Services also powers AOL's Shop@AOL.
Locations
Amazon.com has offices,
fulfillment centers, customer service centers and software development centers across North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.
Headquarters
The company's global headquarters are located in Seattle's
South Lake Union neighborhood.
Software development centers
The company employs software developers in centers across the globe. While much of Amazon's software development is in Seattle, other locations include
Slough (England) and
Edinburgh (Scotland),
Dublin (
Ireland),
Bangalore,
Chennai, and
Hyderabad (India),
Cape Town (South Africa),
Iaşi (
Romania),
Shibuya, Tokyo (Japan), Beijing (China),
Orange County (United States), and
San Francisco (United States).
Fulfillment and warehousing
Fulfillment centers are located in the following cities, often near airports. These centers also provide warehousing and order-fulfillment for third-party sellers:
North America:
:*USA:
Phoenix and
Goodyear, AZ;
New Castle, DE;
Whitestown and
Plainfield, IN;
Coffeyville, KS;
Campbellsville,
Hebron (near
Cincinnati),
Lexington and
Louisville, KY;
Fernley and
North Las Vegas, NV;
Nashua, NH;
Carlisle,
Hazleton,
Allentown,
Lewisberry, PA;
Lexington, SC;
Chattanooga, TN; and
Irving, TX (between
Dallas and
Fort Worth);
Sterling, VA;
Bellevue, WA.
:*Canada: Ontario, Mississauga - Canada Post facility
Europe:
:*England: Marston Gate, near
Brogborough,
Bedfordshire,
Peterborough,
Doncaster.
:*Scotland:
Gourock,
Inverclyde;
Glenrothes (
Fife)
:*Wales:
Crymlyn Burrows,
Swansea near
Jersey Marine
:*France:
Boigny-sur-Bionne (2000) and
Saran (2007),
Loiret;
Montélimar,
Drôme (2010)
:*Germany:
Bad Hersfeld,
Hessen;
Leipzig,
Saxony
:*Slovakia:
Bratislava (2011)
Asia:
:*Japan:
Ichikawa and
Yachiyo,
Chiba;
Sakai and
Daito,
Osaka;
Kawagoe,
Saitama
:*China:
Guangzhou,
Suzhou, Beijing
Closed fulfillment and warehousing locations
::These U.S. distribution centers have been closed: Red Rock, Nevada;
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania;
Munster, Indiana; and
McDonough, Georgia.
Products and services
Amazon product lines include books, music CDs, videotapes and DVDs, software, consumer electronics, kitchen items, tools, lawn and garden items, toys & games, baby products, apparel, sporting goods, gourmet food, jewelry, watches, health and personal-care items, beauty products, musical instruments, clothing, industrial & scientific supplies, and groceries.
The company launched amazon.com Auctions, a Web auctions service, in March 1999. However, it failed to chip away at industry pioneer eBay's large market share. amazon.com Auctions was followed by the launch of a fixed-price marketplace business, zShops, in September 1999, and the now defunct Sotheby's/Amazon partnership called ''amazon.com'' in November. Auctions and zShops evolved into Amazon Marketplace, a service launched in November 2000 that let customers sell used books, CDs, DVDs, and other products alongside new items. Today, Amazon Marketplace's main rival is eBay's Half.com service.
In August 2005, Amazon began selling products under its own private label, "Pinzon"; the trademark applications indicated that the label would be used for textiles, kitchen utensils, and other household goods. In March 2007, the company applied to expand the trademark to cover a more diverse list of goods, and to register a new design consisting of the "word PINZON in stylized letters with a notched letter O whose space appears at the "one o'clock" position". Coverage by the trademark grew to include items such as paints, carpets, wallpaper, hair accessories, clothing, footwear, headgear, cleaning products, and jewelry. On September 2008, Amazon filed to have the name registered. USPTO has finished its review of the application, but Amazon has yet to receive an official registration for the name.
Amazon MP3, its own online music store, launched in the US on September 25, 2007, selling downloads exclusively in MP3 format without digital rights management. This was the first online offering of DRM-free music from all four major record companies.
In August 2007, Amazon announced AmazonFresh, a grocery service offering perishable and nonperishable foods. Customers can have orders delivered to their homes at dawn or during a specified daytime window. Delivery was initially restricted to residents of Mercer Island, Washington, and was later expanded to several ZIP codes in Seattle proper. AmazonFresh also operated pick-up locations in the suburbs of Bellevue and Kirkland from summer 2007 through early 2008.
In 2008 Amazon expanded into film production, producing the film ''The Stolen Child'' with 20th Century Fox.
Amazon's Honor System was launched in 2001 to allow customers to make donations or buy digital content, with Amazon collecting a percentage of the payment plus a fee. The service was discontinued in 2008. and replaced by Amazon Payments. Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002, which provides programmatic access to latent features on its website. Amazon also created "channels" to benefit certain causes. In 2004, Amazon's "Presidential Candidates" allowed customers to donate $5–200 to the campaigns of 2004 U.S. presidential hopefuls. Amazon has periodically reactivated a Red Cross donation channel after crises such as the 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, and the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean. By January 2005, nearly 200,000 people had donated over $15.7 million in the US.
Amazon Web Services
Amazon Web Services (AWS) was first launched as a public beta of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud running Microsoft Windows Server and Microsoft SQL Server. This was later expanded to several operating systems including various flavors of Linux and OpenSolaris.
In March 2006, Amazon launched an online storage service called Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). An unlimited number of data objects, from 1 byte to 5 terabytes in size, can be stored in S3 and distributed via HTTP or BitTorrent. The service charges monthly fees for data stored and transferred. In 2006, Amazon introduced Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), a distributed queue messaging service, and product wikis (later folded into Amapedia) and discussion forums for certain products using guidelines that follow standard message board conventions. Also in 2006, Amazon introduced Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a virtual site farm, allowing users to use the Amazon infrastructure to run applications ranging from running simulations to web hosting. In 2008, Amazon improved the service adding Elastic Block Store (EBS), offering persistent storage for Amazon EC2 instances and Elastic IP addresses, static IP addresses designed for dynamic cloud computing.
Amazon introduced SimpleDB, a database system, allowing users of its other infrastructure to utilize a high reliability high performance database system.
Amazon continues to refine and add services to AWS, adding such services as Scalable DNS service (Amazon Route 53), payment handling, and AWS specific APIs for their Mechanical Turk service.
Amazon Prime
Amazon Prime offers free two day shipping with no minimum purchase amount for a flat annual fee, as well as discounted one day shipping rates. Amazon launched the program in the continental United States in 2005, in Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany in 2007, and in France (as "Amazon Premium") in 2008. In February 2011, Amazon Prime membership was expanded to include access to 5,000 instant streaming movies and TV shows at no additional cost.
Amazon Publishing
Amazon Publishing is Amazon's publishing unit. It is composed of AmazonEncore, AmazonCrossing, Montlake Romance, Thomas & Mercer, and Powered by Amazon. Additional imprints are planned.
In May 2009 Amazon launched AmazonEncore, the inaugural flagship general imprint. AmazonCrossing was announced in May 2010, for translated works into English. The first translated books were the French-language novel ''The King of Kahel'' and the German-language novel ''The Hangman's Daughter'' which were released in November and December 2010, respectively.
In May 2011 Amazon launched two genre-focused imprints, Montlake Romance, and Thomas & Mercer. Montlake Romance is an imprint for the romance genre, "Romance is one of our biggest and fastest growing categories, particularly among Kindle customers," said Jeff Belle, vice president of Amazon Publishing. Thomas & Mercer is for mystery titles.
Powered by Amazon is a self-publishing platform that allows the publication of a series of books under any imprint name. For example in May 2011 Seth Godin launched The Domino Project, an imprint created to publish a series of manifestos. It was the inaugural Powered by Amazon imprint project.
Subscribe & Save
Amazon's Subscribe & Save program offers a discounted price on an item (usually sold in bulk), free shipping on every Subscribe & Save shipment, automatic shipment of the item every one, two, three, or six months, with the option of canceling at any time.
AmazonBasics
Other services
Launched in 2005, Amazon Shorts offers exclusive short stories and non-fiction pieces from best-selling authors for immediate download. By June 2007, the program had over 1,700 pieces and was adding about 50 new pieces per week. In November 2005, amazon.com began testing
Amazon Mechanical Turk, an
application programming interface (API) allowing programs to dispatch tasks to human processors.
In 2007 Amazon launched Amapedia, a now-defunct wiki for user-generated content to replace ProductWiki, the video on demand service Amazon Unbox, and Amazon MP3, which sells downloadable MP3s. Amazon's terms of use agreements restrict use of the MP3s, but Amazon does not use DRM to enforce those terms. Amazon MP3 sells music from the Big 4 record labels EMI, Universal, Warner Bros. Records, and Sony BMG, as well as independents. Prior to the launch of this service, Amazon made an investment in Amie Street, a music store with a variable pricing model based on demand. Also in 2007 Amazon launched Amazon Vine, which allows reviewers free access to pre-release products from vendors in return for posting a review, as well as payment service specifically targeted at developers, Amazon FPS.
In November 2007, Amazon launched Amazon Kindle, an e-book reader which downloads content over "Whispernet", via the Sprint Nextel EV-DO wireless network. The screen uses E Ink technology to reduce battery consumption to provide a more legible display. As of March, 2011, the stated library numbers over 850,000 titles. In December 2007, In August 2007, Amazon launched an invitation-only beta-test for online grocery delivery. It has since rolled out in several Seattle, Washington suburbs.
In January 2008 Amazon began rolling out their MP3 service to subsidiary websites worldwide. In December, 2008, Amazon MP3 was made available in the UK. In September, IMDB and amazon.com launched a Music metadata browsing site with wiki-like user contribution. In November, Amazon partnered with Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft and Transcend to offer products with minimal packaging to reduce environmental impact and frustration with opening "clamshell" type packaging. Amazon Connect enables authors to post remarks on their book pages to customers. WebStore allows businesses to create custom e-commerce websites using Amazon technology. Sellers pay a commission of 7 percent, including credit-card processing fees and fraud protection, and a subscription fee of $59.95/month for an unlimited number of webstores and listings.
In July 2010 Amazon announced that e-book sales for its Kindle reader outnumbered sales of hardcover books for the first time ever during the second quarter of 2010. Amazon claims that, during that period, 143 e-books were sold for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there is no digital edition; and during late June and early July sales rose to 180 digital books for every 100 hardcovers.
In 2011, Amazon announced that it was releasing a Mac download store in order to offer dozens of games and hundreds of pieces of software for Apple computers.
Amazon.com exclusives
An Amazon.com exclusive is a product, usually a DVD, that is available exclusively on Amazon.com. Some DVDs are produced by the owner of the film/product, while others are produced by Amazon.com, itself. The DVDs produced by Amazon are made using their
Createspace program, in which DVDs are created once ordered using DVD-R technology. The DVDs are then shipped about two days later after being produced. Some DVDs (such as the
Jersey Shore Season 1 or
The Unusuals Season 1) first release their DVD on Amazon as an Amazon.com Exclusive for a limited time before being released elsewhere. On May 23, 2011 Amazon.com offered customers to download Lady Gaga's Born This Way album for $0.99 which extremely high volume causing downloads to be delayed.
Website
The domain ''amazon.com'' attracted at least 615 million visitors annually by 2008, twice the number of ''
walmart.com''. Amazon attracts approximately 65 million customers to its U.S. website per month. The company has also invested heavily on a massive amount of server capacity for its website, especially to handle the excessive traffic during the December
Christmas holiday season. There are different versions of the website for different countries, such as amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.at, amazon.jp, amazon.ca. These sites vary in assortment and prices.
Reviews
:''See also
Amazon.com controversies#Amazon Reviews''
Amazon allows users to submit reviews to the web page of each product. Reviewers must rate the product on a
rating scale from one to five stars. As with most rating scales, one star stands for the product being abysmal, five stars meaning that the item is stellar. Amazon provides an optional badging option for reviewers which indicate the real name of the reviewer (based on confirmation of a credit card account) or which indicate that the reviewer is one of the top reviewers by popularity. Customers may comment or vote on the reviews, indicating whether or not they found it helpful.
Content search
"Search Inside the Book" is a feature which allows customers to search for keywords in the full text of many books in the catalog. The feature started with 120,000 titles (or 33 million pages of text) on October 23, 2003. There are currently about 300,000 books in the program. Amazon has cooperated with around 130
publishers to allow users to perform these searches.
To avoid copyright violations, amazon.com does not return the computer-readable text of the book. Instead, it returns a picture of the matching page, disables printing, and puts limits on the number of pages in a book a single user can access. Additionally, customers can purchase online access to some of the same books via the "Amazon Upgrade" program.
Third-party sellers
Amazon derives about 40 percent of its sales from affiliate marketing called "Amazon Associates" and third-party sellers who sell products on Amazon. Associates receive a commission for referring customers to Amazon by placing links on their websites to Amazon, if the referral results in a sale. Worldwide, Amazon has "over 900,000 members" in its affiliate programs. Amazon reported over 1.3 million sellers sold products through Amazon's World Wide Web sites in 2007. Unlike
eBay, Amazon sellers do not have to maintain separate payment accounts; all payments are handled by Amazon.
Associates can access the Amazon catalog directly on their websites by using the Amazon Web Services (AWS) XML service. A new affiliate product, aStore, allows Associates to embed a subset of Amazon products within, or linked to another website. In June 2010, Amazon Seller Product Suggestions was launched (rumored to be internally called "Project Genesis") to provide more transparency to sellers by recommending specific products to third party sellers to sell on Amazon. Products suggested are based on customers' browsing history.
A January 2010 survey of third-party sellers by Auctionbytes.com found that Amazon was 4th overall. amazon.com placed second in "Profitability". Its lowest rating, but still above average, was in "Ease of Use". Sellers felt Amazon had clearly defined rules, provided a steady stream of traffic to their listings, and put less emphasis on a community component. amazon.com came in second in the Recommended Selling Venue category.
Controversies
Since its founding, in summary, the website Amazon.com has attracted criticism and controversy from multiple sources over its actions, such as its "1-Click patent" claims, anti-competitive actions, price discrimination, anti-unionization efforts, Amazon Kindle remote content removal, taking public subsidies and avoiding sales tax collection duties. Various decisions over whether to censor or publish content such as the WikiLeaks web site; LGBT book sales rank; and works containing libel, facilitating dogfight, cockfight, or pedophile activities have been controversial.
Sales and use taxes
Amazon has been criticized for its refusal to collect sales taxes from customers in states in which it does not have a physical presence, thus giving it a comparative advantage over brick-and-mortar retailers. Possibly, such customers should pay the equivalent amount in use tax directly to their state; however, few customers do so.
Lobbying
Amazon.com lobbies the federal government and state governments on issues such as the enforcement of sales taxes on online sales, transportation safety, privacy and data protection, and intellectual property. According to regulatory filings Amazon.com focuses its lobbying on the US Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Reserve. Amazon.com spent $450,000 on lobbying during the second quarter of 2011, $630,000 in the first quarter of 2011, and $500,000 during the second quarter of 2010.
Entrepreneurship by former employees
A number of companies have been started and founded by former Amazon.com employees.
BankBazaar.com was founded by Arjun Shetty, a former senior product manager at Amazon.com
Evri was led by Neil Roseman, a former VP at Amazon.com
Findory was founded by Greg Linden
Flipkart was founded by
Sachin Bansal and
Binny Bansal, former Amazon India employees.
Foodista was founded by Barnaby Dorfman
Hulu is led by Jason Kilar, a former SVP at Amazon.com
Jambool/SocialGold was co-founded by former Amazon.com engineers Vikas Gupta and Reza Hussein
Medio Systems was founded by Brian Lent, a former Director of Information Technology at Amazon.com
Quora was co-founded by ex-Amazon.com (and Facebook) engineer Charlie Cheever
TeachStreet was founded by Dave Schappell, an early Amazon.com product manager
The Book Depository was founded by Andrew Crawford, former Amazon.co.uk employee.
TrackSimple was founded by Jon Ingalls and Ajit Banerjee
Trusera was founded by Keith Schorsch, an early Amazonian
Vittana was founded by Kushal Chakrabarti, a tech lead at Amazon, and Brett Witt with financial backing from a number of early Amazon VPs
Pelago was co-founded by Jeff Holden, a former SVP at Amazon.com and Darren Vengroff, a former Principal Engineer
Wikinvest was founded by Michael Shea
Yellowleg.com was founded by Aashish Gupta, former Amazon.com and Amazon India employee.
Off & Away was founded by Doug Aley, former sr. product manager, and Michael Walton, former product manager at Amazon.com
Chakpak.com was founded by ex-Amazon India engineers Nitin Rajput and Gaurav Singh Kushwaha
See also
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN)
Online shopping
Statistically Improbable Phrases: amazon.com's phrase extraction technique for indexing books.
References
Further reading
"A conversation with Werner Vogels", ACM Queue, May 2006
External links
Official mobile site
Amazon Associates
Category:American websites
Category:Book selling websites
Category:Bookstores of the United States
Category:Cloud computing providers
Category:Companies based in Washington (state)
Category:Companies based in Seattle, Washington
Category:Companies established in 1994
Category:Internet properties established in 1994
Category:1994 establishments in the United States
Category:Dot-com
Category:Ebook suppliers
Category:Online companies
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Category:Online retail companies of the United States
Category:Publicly traded companies
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