Misplaced Pages

Amazon (company): Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 19:07, 5 September 2013 view sourceEnginear (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users1,359 editsm →History: Corrected discrepancy between two mentions of company founding date 1995 > 1994. (Page 46 of ref 12 confirms company was incorporated on July 5, 1994)← Previous edit Revision as of 15:57, 8 September 2013 view source 68.175.127.180 (talk)No edit summaryNext edit →
Line 3: Line 3:
{{Infobox dot-com company {{Infobox dot-com company
|company_name = Amazon.com, Inc. |company_name = Amazon.com, Inc.
|company_logo = ] |company_logo = ] <br> 2000-present version of the 1994-present logo.
|company_type = ] |company_type = ]
|traded_as = {{NASDAQ|AMZN}}<br />] Component<br />] Component |traded_as = {{NASDAQ|AMZN}}<br />] Component<br />] Component

Revision as of 15:57, 8 September 2013

This article is about the corporation. For other uses, see Amazon (disambiguation).

Amazon.com, Inc.

2000-present version of the 1994-present logo.
Type of businessPublic
Type of siteE-commerce
Available inEnglish, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese
Traded asNasdaq: AMZN
NASDAQ-100 Component
S&P 500 Component
Founded1994 (1994)
HeadquartersSeattle, Washington, United States
Area servedWorldwide
Founder(s)Jeff Bezos
Key peopleJeff Bezos
(Chairman, President & CEO)
IndustryInternet, online retailing
ProductsA2Z Development, A9.com, Alexa Internet, Amazon.com, Amazon Kindle, Amazon Studios, Amazon Web Services, Audible.com, dpreview.com, Endless.com, IMDb, LoveFilm, The Book Depository, Zappos.com, Woot, Junglee.com, goodreads.com, myhabit.com, askville
RevenueIncrease US$ 61.09 billion (2012)
Operating incomeDecrease US$ 0676 million (2012)
Net incomeDecrease US$ 0−39 million (2012)
Total assetsIncrease US$ 32.535 billion (2012)
Total equityIncrease US$ 08.19 billion (2012)
Employees97,000 (June 2013)
SubsidiariesAmazon Instant Video
Kindle
URLAmazon.com (original US site)
various national sites
AdvertisingWeb banners, videos
Launched1995
Written inC++, Perl and Java

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American international multibillion dollar electronic commerce company with headquarters in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling DVDs, VHSs, CDs, video and MP3 downloads/streaming, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry. The company also produces consumer electronics—notably the Amazon Kindle e-book reader and the Kindle Fire tablet computer—and is a major provider of cloud computing services.

Jeff Bezos incorporated the company (as Cadabra) in July 1994 and the site went online as Amazon.com in 1995. The company was renamed after the Amazon River, one of the largest rivers in the world, which in turn was named after the Amazons, the legendary nation of female warriors in Greek mythology.

Amazon has separate retail websites for United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, India, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, China and Austria. with international shipping to certain other countries for some of its products. In 2011, it had professed an intention to launch its websites in Poland, Netherlands, and Sweden, as well.

History

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos

The company was founded in 1994, spurred by what Bezos called his "regret minimization framework", which described his efforts to fend off any regrets for not participating sooner in the Internet business boom during that time. In 1994, Bezos left his employment as vice-president of D.E. Shaw, a Wall Street firm, and moved to Seattle. He began to work on a business plan for what would eventually become Amazon.com. After reading a report about the future of the Internet which projected annual Web commerce growth at 2,300%, Bezos created a list of 20 products which could be marketed online. He narrowed the list to what he felt were the five most promising products which included: compact discs, computer hardware, computer software, videos, and books. Bezos finally decided that his new business would sell books online, due to the large world-wide demand for literature, the low price points for books, along with the huge number of titles available in print. Amazon was originally founded in Bezos' garage in Bellevue, Washington.

The company began as an online bookstore. In the first two months of business, Amazon sold to all 50 states and over 45 countries. Within two months, Amazon's sales were up to $20,000/week. While the largest brick and mortar bookstores and mail order catalogs might offer 200,000 titles, an online bookstore could "carry" several times more, since they had an almost unlimited virtual (not actual) warehouse: those of the actual product makers/suppliers. Bezos wanted a name for his company that began with "A" so that it would appear early in alphabetic order. He began looking through the dictionary and settled on "Amazon" because it was a place that was "exotic and different" just as he planned for his store to be, and he believed it was the biggest river in the world, and he planned to make his store the biggest in the world. Since 2000, Amazon's logotype has featured a curved arrow leading from A to Z, representing that they carry every product from A to Z, with the arrow shaped like a smile.

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 October 1995, the company announced itself to the public. 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 a price of US$18.00 per share ($1.50 after three stock splits in the late 1990s).

Amazon's initial business plan was unusual; it did not expect to make a profit for four to five years. This "slow" growth caused stockholders to complain about the company not reaching profitability fast enough to justify investing in, or to even survive in the long-term. When the dot-com bubble burst at the start of the 21st Century, destroying many e-companies in the process, Amazon survived, and grew on past the bubble burst to become a huge player in online sales. It finally turned its first profit in the fourth quarter of 2001: $5 million (i.e., 1¢ per share), on revenues of more than $1 billion. This profit margin, though extremely modest, proved to skeptics that Bezos' unconventional business model could succeed. In 1999, Time magazine named Bezos the Person of the Year, recognizing the company's success in popularizing online shopping.

Barnes & Noble sued Amazon on May 12, 1997, alleging that Amazon's claim to be "the world's largest bookstore" was false. Barnes and Noble asserted, " isn't a bookstore at all. It's a book broker." The suit was later settled out of court, and Amazon continued to make the same claim." Walmart sued Amazon on October 16, 1998, alleging that Amazon had stolen their trade secrets by hiring former Walmart executives. Although this suit was also settled out of court, it caused Amazon to implement internal restrictions and the re-assignment of the former Walmart executives.

Acquisitions

Investment

Subsidiaries

  • 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.
  • 2007: Brilliance Audio, the largest independent audio book producer in the U.S.

Merchant partnerships

Until June 30, 2006, typing ToysRUs.com into a browser would bring up Amazon.com's "Toys & Games" tab; however, this relationship was terminated due to a lawsuit. Amazon also hosted and managed the website for Borders bookstores but this ceased in 2008. From 2001 until August 2011, Amazon hosted the retail website for Target. Benefit Cosmetics, another merchant partner of Amazon, has also launched a major E-Commerce platform of their own based on Hybris and arvato systems NA, in the US, EU and China.

Amazon.com operates retail websites for Sears Canada, bebe Stores, 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 interact with some people they call the retail website, standalone in-store terminals, or phone-based customer service agents. Amazon Web Services also powers AOL's Shop@AOL.

On October 18, 2011, Amazon.com announced a partnership with DC Comics for the exclusive digital rights to many popular comics, including Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Sandman, and Watchmen. The partnership has caused well-known bookstores like Barnes & Noble to remove these titles from their shelves. These titles will be available for purchase exclusively through Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablet.

Locations

Amazon has offices, fulfillment centers, warehouses, customer service centers and software development centers across North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia.

Headquarters

Amazon.com's former headquarters in the Pacific Medical Center building in Beacon Hill, Seattle.

The company's global headquarters are in 14 buildings in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood. The European headquarters are in Luxembourg's capital, Luxembourg City. In Seattle, as of 2013, a 3-tower headquarters near Amazon's existing buildings with a capacity of 12,000 employees was under construction.

Software development centers

While much of Amazon's software development occurs in Seattle, the company employs software developers in centers across the globe. Some of these sites are run by an Amazon subsidiary called A2Z Development.

Customer Service Centers

  • United States: Kennewick, WA; Huntington, WV; Grand Forks, ND; Winchester, KY
  • India: Hyderabad
  • South Africa: Cape Town
  • Philippines: Convergys Cebu, Convergys Bacolod
  • China: Chengdu
  • Germany: Berlin
  • Ireland: Cork
  • Morocco: Sala al Jadida
  • UK: Edinburgh, Scotland
  • Japan: Sapporo
  • Costa Rica: Heredia and Calle Blancos
  • Uruguay: Montevideo
  • Italy: Cagliari

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:

Warehouses are large and each has hundreds of employees. Employees are responsible for four basic tasks: unpacking and inspecting incoming goods; placing goods in storage and recording their location; picking goods from their computer recorded locations to make up an individual shipment; and shipping. A central computer which records the location of goods and maps out routes for pickers plays a central role; employees carry hand-held computers which communicate with the central computer and monitor their rate of progress. A picker with their cart may walk 10 or more miles a day. In the United Kingdom initial staffing was provided by Randstad Holding and other temporary employment agencies. Some workers are accepted as Amazon employees and granted pension and shares of stock; others are dismissed. "When we have permanent positions available, we look to the top performing temporary associates to fill them." Development of a high level of automation is anticipated in the future following Amazon's 2012 acquisition of Kiva Systems, a warehouse automation company.

Amazon.co.uk warehouse in Glenrothes, Scotland, UK

Other

Closed fulfillment, warehousing and customer service locations

These U.S. distribution centers have been closed: SDC Seattle Distribution Center, located in Georgetown, just south of downtown Seattle; Red Rock, Nevada; Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; Munster, Indiana; and McDonough, Georgia. From 2000 until February 2001, there was an Amazon customer service based in The Hague, Netherlands.

Products and services

Third-generation Amazon Kindle

Retail goods

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 the large market share of the industry pioneer, eBay. Later, the company launched a fixed-price marketplace business, zShops, in September 1999, and the now defunct partnership with Sotheby's, called Sothebys.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 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 2012, Amazon announced the launch of Vine.com for buying green products, including groceries, household items and apparel. It is part of Quidsi, the company that Amazon bought in 2010 that also runs the sites Diapers.com (baby), Wag.com (pets) and YoYo.com (toys). Amazon also owns other e-commerce sites like Zappos.com, Shopbop.com and Woot.

Amazon's Subscribe & Save program offers a discounted price on an item (usually sold in bulk), free shipping on every Subscribe & Save shipment, and automatic shipment of the item every one, two, three, or six months.

In 2013, Amazon launched its site in India, amazon.in. It has started with electronic goods. However, it plans to expand into fashion apparel, beauty, home essentials and health care categories by the end of 2013.

Consumer electronics

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 and to provide a more legible display. As of March 2011, the stated library numbers over 850,000 titles.

In September 2011, Amazon announced its entry into the tablet computer market by introducing the Kindle Fire, which runs a customized version of the operating system Android. The exceedingly low pricing of Fire ($199 USD) was widely perceived as a strategy backed by Amazon's revenue from its content sales, to be stimulated by sales of Fire.

Digital content

File:Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9" Tablet Japanese Edition.JPG
Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9" Tablet

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.

Amazon MP3, its own online music store, launched in the U.S. on September 25, 2007, selling downloads exclusively in MP3 format without digital rights management. (In addition to copyright law, 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 Music, 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. Amazon MP3 was the first online offering of DRM-free music from all four major record companies.

In January 2008, Amazon began rolling out its MP3 service to subsidiary websites worldwide. In December 2008, Amazon MP3 was made available in the UK.

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.

In 2011, Amazon announced that it was releasing a Mac download store to offer dozens of games and hundreds of pieces of software for Apple computers.

On August 2012, Amazon announced it would be adding a gaming department to its company titled Amazon Game Studios. Amazon states that they will be bringing, "innovative, fun and well-crafted games."

In January 2013, Amazon announced it is launching AutoRip, a digital music service.

Amazon Art

In August 2013 Amazon launched Amazon Art as an online marketplace selling original and limited edition fine art from selected galleries. The initial 40000 items listed for sale included Norman Rockwell's painting “Willie Gillis: Package from Home” priced at $4.85 million, "L'Enfant a la tasse" by Claude Monet for $1.45 million and Andy Warhol's "Sachiko" for $45 000.

Amazon Instant Video

Main article: Amazon Instant Video

Amazon Prime

Amazon Prime is a service of free two-day shipping on all eligible purchases, for a flat annual fee, as well as discounted one-day shipping rates. Amazon launched the program in the contiguous United States in 2005, in Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany in 2007, in France (as "Amazon Premium") in 2008, in Italy in 2011 and in Canada in 2013.

Amazon Prime membership in the United States also provides Amazon Instant Video, the instant streaming of selected movies and TV shows at no additional cost, as of February 2011. In November 2011, it was announced that Prime members have access to the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, which allows users to borrow certain popular titles for free reading on Kindle hardware, up to one book a month, with no due date.

Private labels and exclusive marketing arrangements

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" which 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. In 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.

AmazonBasics is a private-label consumer electronics product line. It sells AV cables, blank DVD media and other electronics products under the AmazonBasics product label. The line was launched in 2009.

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, upon ordering, using DVD-R technology. The DVDs are then shipped about two days later. 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 allowed customers to download Lady Gaga's Born This Way album for $0.99, resulting in some downloads being delayed, due to an extremely high volume of downloads.

Amazon provides fast and inexpensive self publishing services through one of its companies, CreateSpace, a member of the Amazon group of companies, allowing authors to easily offer their content to millions of customers on Amazon.com and other methods.

Computing services

AWS Summit 2013 event in NYC.

Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002, which provides programmatic access to latent features on its website. 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 November 2005, amazon.com began testing Amazon Mechanical Turk, an application programming interface (API) allowing programs to dispatch tasks to human processors.

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 by adding Elastic Block Store (EBS), offering persistent storage for Amazon EC2 instances and Elastic IP addresses, and offering 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.

In August 2012, Amazon announced Amazon Glacier, a low-cost online file storage web service that provides reliable data archiving, storage, and backup.

In November 2012 at AWS' web developer conference in Las Vegas it announced it was targeting large companies as cloud storage clients. It will further cut its S3 prices to customers with long-term contracts in its "Redshift" storage service launching in 2013.

In March 2013 Amazon announced its Mobile Ads API for developers. The new Ads API can be used on apps distributed on any Android platform as long as the app is also available on Amazon’s Appstore.

Content production

Amazon Publishing is Amazon's publishing unit. It is composed of AmazonEncore, AmazonCrossing, Montlake Romance, Thomas & Mercer, 47 North, and Powered by Amazon. Additional imprints are planned.

Launched in 2005, Amazon Shorts offered 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. The program was discontinued on June 1, 2010.

In 2008, Amazon expanded into film production, producing the film The Stolen Child with 20th Century Fox.

Donations

Amazon also created "channels" to benefit certain causes. In 2004, Amazon allowed customers to donate $5 to $200 to the campaigns of 2004 U.S. presidential hopefuls, providing links that raised $300,000 for the candidates. Amazon has periodically reactivated a Red Cross donation channel after crises such as the September 11 attacks, 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 U.S.

AmazonLocal

AmazonLocal is a daily deal service launched in June 2011 in Boise, Idaho. As of June 2012, AmazonLocal offers daily deals to over 100 regions in 29 U.S. states. AmazonLocal acts primarily as a deal aggregator; some of the deals are actually offered through LivingSocial, a firm in which Amazon has heavily invested.

AmazonWireless

In July 2009, Amazon.com launched their AmazonWireless website, which offers cellular devices and service plans for Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile in the US.

AmazonFresh

Main article: AmazonFresh

Other services

In 2007, Amazon launched Amapedia, a now-defunct wiki for user-generated content to replace ProductWiki, and the video on demand service Amazon Unbox.

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 a payment service specifically targeted at developers, Amazon FPS.

IMDb and Amazon launched a Web site called SoundUnwound for browsing music metadata with wiki-like user contribution in September 2007; this data was also used for Amazon's Artist Pages. Soundunwound ceased existence on June 18, 2012, and the site redirected to Amazon.

Amazon Connect enables authors to post remarks on their book pages to customers.

Amazon Webstore allows businesses to create custom e-commerce websites using Amazon technology. Sellers pay a commission of 1-2%, plus credit-card processing fees and fraud protection, and a subscription fee which ranges from $0 to $39.99 per month depending on the bundle option for an unlimited number of listings.

Website

The domain amazon.com attracted at least 615 million visitors annually by 2008, twice the number of Walmart. 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. In addition to amazon.com, there are different versions of Amazon for several different countries, each varying in assortment and prices. As of August 2013, in alphabetical order by region, these are:

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. Amazon provides a 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 to them. If a review is given enough "helpful" hits, it appears on the front page of the product. In 2010, Amazon was reported as being the largest single source of Internet consumer reviews.

Amazon's customer reviews are monitored for indecency, but do permit negative comments. When publishers asked Bezos why Amazon would publish negative reviews, he defended the practice by claiming that amazon.com was "taking a different approach...we want to make every book available – the good, the bad, and the ugly...to let truth loose".

Although reviews are attributed to the credit-card name of the reviewer, there have been cases of positive reviews being written and posted by a public relations company on behalf of its clients, and writers employing pseudonyms to leave negative reviews of their rivals' work.

Following listing for sale of Untouchable: The Strange Life and Tragic Death of Michael Jackson a disparaging biography of Michael Jackson by Randall Sullivan his fans, organized via social media as "Michael Jackson’s Rapid Response Team to Media Attacks" bombarded Amazon with negative reviews and negative ratings of positive reviews.

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, instructs the web browser to disable 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% 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 another website, 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 it had clearly defined rules, provided a steady stream of traffic to their listings, and put less emphasis on a community component. Amazon came in second in the Recommended Selling Venue category.

Amazon sales rank

The Amazon sales rank (ASR) provides an indication of the popularity of a product sold on any Amazon locale. It is a relative indicator of popularity that is updated hourly. Effectively, it is a "best sellers list" for the millions of products stocked by Amazon. While the ASR has no direct effect on the sales of a product, it is used by Amazon to determine which products to include in their best sellers lists. Products that appear in these lists enjoy additional exposure on the Amazon website, and this may lead to an increase in sales. In particular, products that experience large jumps (up or down) in their sales ranks may be included within Amazon's lists of "movers and shakers," and this also provides additional exposure that may lead to an increase in sales. For competitive reasons, Amazon does not release actual sales figures to the public. However, Amazon has now begun to release point of sale data via the Nielsen BookScan service to verified authors. While the ASR has been the source of much speculation by publishers, manufacturers and marketers, Amazon itself does not release the details of its sales rank calculation algorithm. In addition, it states:

Please keep in mind that our sales rank figures are simply meant to be a guide of general interest for the customer and not definitive sales information for publishers - we assume you have this information regularly from your distribution sources

— Amazon.com Help,

Amazon technology

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Information Management (IM) support Amazon’s business strategy. The core technology that keeps Amazon running is Linux-based. As of 2005, Amazon had the world’s three largest Linux databases, with capacities of 7.8 TB, 18.5 TB, and 24.7 TB. The central data warehouse of Amazon is made of 28 Hewlett Packard servers with four CPUs per node running Oracle database software. Amazon’s technology architecture handles millions of back-end operations every day, as well as queries from more than half a million third-party sellers. With hundreds of thousands of people sending their credit card numbers to Amazon’s servers everyday, security becomes a major concern. Amazon employs Netscape Secure Commerce Server using the Secure Socket Layer protocol which stores all credit card details in a separate database. The company also records data on customer buyer behavior which enables them to offer or recommend to an individual specific item, or bundles of items based upon preferences demonstrated through purchases or items visited.

On January 31, 2013 Amazon experienced an outage that lasted approximately 49 minutes, leaving its site inaccessible to some customers.

Multi-level sales strategy

Amazon employs a multi-level e-commerce strategy. Amazon started off by focusing on Business-to-Consumer relationships between itself and its customers, and Business-to-Business relationships between itself and its suppliers but it then moved to incorporate Customer-to-Business transactions as it realized the value of customer reviews as part of the product descriptions. It now also facilitates customer to customer with the provision of the Amazon marketplace which act as an intermediary to facilitate consumer to consumer transactions. The company lets almost anyone sell almost anything using its platform. In addition to affiliate program that lets anybody post Amazon links and earn a commission on click through sales, there is now a program which let those affiliates build entire websites based on Amazon’s platform.

Some other large e-commerce sellers use Amazon to sell their products in addition to selling them through their own websites. The sales are processed through Amazon.com and end up at individual sellers for processing and order fulfillment and Amazon leases space for these retailers. Small sellers of used and new goods go to Amazon Marketplace to offer goods at a fixed price. Amazon also employs the use of drop shippers or meta sellers. These are members or entities that advertise goods on Amazon who order these goods direct from other competing websites but usually from other Amazon members. These meta sellers may have millions of products listed, have large transaction numbers and are grouped alongside other less prolific members giving them credibility as just someone who has been in business for a long time. Markup is anywhere from 50% to 100% and sometimes more, these sellers maintain that items are in stock when the opposite is true. As Amazon increases their dominance in the marketplace these drop shippers have become more and more commonplace in recent years. The resulting damage to a supply and demand marketplace remains to be seen but advertising contracts with large search engines eliminating smaller websites from overall exposure these practices should have a negative effect on the industry on the whole.

Revenue

Over the last decade, Amazon has developed a customer base of around 30 million people. Amazon.com is primarily a retail site with a sales revenue model. Amazon makes its money by taking a small percentage of the sale price of each item that is sold through its website. Amazon also allows companies to advertise their products by paying to be listed as featured products.

In Q1 2012, Amazon reported a loss due to its stake in Living Social.

Controversies

Main article: Amazon.com controversies

Since its founding, the company has attracted criticism and controversy from multiple sources over its actions. These include: luring customers away from the site's brick and mortar competitors, poor warehouse conditions for workers; anti-unionization efforts; Amazon Kindle remote content removal; taking public subsidies; its "1-Click patent" claims; anti-competitive actions; price discrimination; 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. In December 2011, Amazon faced backlash from small businesses for running a one-day deal to promote its new Price Check app. Shoppers who used the app to check prices in a brick-and-mortar store were offered a 5% discount to purchase the same item from Amazon. Companies like Groupon, eBay, and Taap.it countered Amazon's promotion by offering $10 off from their products.

Sales and use taxes

Main article: Amazon tax

Amazon collects sales tax from just eight states in the US. Amazon is under increasing legal and political pressure from state governments, traditional retailers and other groups because of its refusal to collect sales tax in 40 of the 45 states with a statewide sales tax (as of May 2011). Those 40 states include at least 12 where Amazon has a clear physical presence, via distribution centers and wholly owned subsidiaries. Critics of Amazon argue that its refusal to collect sales taxes has given it an unfair advantage over traditional retailers. While customers are required to remit use tax directly to their state, few customers do so.

Amazon has said since at least 2006 that it would support a federal solution to the sales tax problem, as long as such legislation was fair and simple. The Main Street Fairness Act failed in committee in 2010, and several earlier versions of the bill failed to advance. Amazon lobbyists met four times with members of Congress or their aides in 2010 regarding the Main Street Fairness Act. The company spent $610,000 on lobbying in 2010, although these expenses also covered other bills discussed at the same time. Amazon has increased political contributions to federal lawmakers. Amazon's political action committee spent $214,000 during the 2010 election cycle, double what it spent for the 2008 elections.

Small business advocates at the American Independent Business Alliance note that while proclaiming support for reform, Amazon has lobbied to apply sales tax collection duties to all businesses with $150,000 or more in annual sales. Since all major proposals include an exemption of at least $500,000 or $1 million, AMIBA says this impedes passage of tax reform.

Alleged tax avoidance in the UK

In November 2012, the UK government announced plans to investigate Amazon.com, along with Starbucks and Google, for tax avoidance. As a result, Amazon has faced a backlash and boycott from the general public and other businesses in the UK.

Internet Piracy Issues in China

The Chinese government is planning to increase regulation of Amazon (along with Apple Inc. and Taobao.com) in relation to internet piracy issues. Amazon has already had to shut down third party distributors due to pressure from the NCAC.

Alleged Mistreatment of Individual Sellers

Amazon has faced scrutiny from numerous individual sellers who have claimed that Amazon unexpectedly closed their accounts, and subsequently withheld their funds for indefinite time frames. According to Section 5.k of the Amazon Seller's Participation agreement, Amazon may earn interest on funds collected from buyers before they are disbursed to sellers, meaning Amazon can increase their earnings by delaying disbursement.

Poor working conditions

Amazon has attracted widespread criticism by both current and former employees, as well as the media and politicians for poor working conditions. In fall 2011 it was publicized that at the Allentown, Pennsylvania warehouse, workers had to carry out work in 100 °F (38 °C) heat, resulting in employees becoming extremely uncomfortable and suffering from dehydration and collapse. Loading-bay doors were not opened to allow in fresh air as "managers were worried about theft". Amazon's initial response was to pay for an ambulance to sit outside on call to cart away overheated employees.

Some workers, "pickers", who travel the building with a trolley and a handheld scanner "picking" customer orders can walk up to 15 miles a day back and forward, and if they fall behind on their targets, they can be reprimanded. The handheld scanners feed back to the employee real time information on how fast or slowly they are going, and also serve to allow Team Leads and Area Managers to track the specific locations of employees and how much "idle time" they gain when not working.

In a German television report broadcast in February 2013, journalists Diana Löbl and Peter Onneken conducted a covert investigation at the distribution center of Amazon in the town of Bad Hersfeld in the German state of Hesse. The report highlights the behavior of some of the security guards who apparently either had a Neo-nazi background or deliberately dressed in Neo-Nazi apparel, and who were intimidating foreign and temporary female workers at its distribution centres.

Amazon UK

On 2 August 2013 the Daily Mail ran an expose outing Amazon UK for employee gps 'tagging' and subjecting them to harsh working conditions, describing employees as 'human robots', the newspaper said that Amazon employed 'controversial' zero-hour contracts as a tool to reprimand staff. A Channel 4 documentary broadcast on the 1st August 2013 employed secret cameras within Amazon UK's Rugeley warehouse documenting worker abuses and made similar claim to the Daily Mail calling the working practices 'horrendous and exhausting'.

Lobbying

Amazon.com lobbies the United States 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 U.S. Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Reserve. Amazon.com spent $450,000 on lobbying in the second quarter of 2011, $630,000 in the first quarter of 2011, and $500,000 in the second quarter of 2010.

Amazon.com was a corporate member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) until it dropped membership following protests at its shareholders' meeting May 24, 2012.

Notable businesses from former employees

A number of companies have been started and founded by former Amazon employees.

See also

References

  1. Maps, Google
  2. "Amazon's Seattle headquarters", Arch daily
  3. "Amazon pays top dollar to buy Seattle HQ", Reuters, October 5, 2012
  4. My habit
  5. Askville, Amazon
  6. ^ "Amazon.com, Form 10-K, Annual Report, Filing Date Jan 30, 2013" (PDF). SEC database. Retrieved February 26, 2013.
  7. "Amazon Will Soon Surpass Microsoft AND Google In One Key Measure". Retrieved July 26, 2013.
  8. "Amazon.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved September 1, 2013.
  9. Alibaba Is A Threat To Amazon, eBay, Walmart And Everyone Else
  10. Wal-Mart Vs. Amazon: World's Biggest E-Commerce Battle Could Boil Down To Vegetables
  11. Jopson, Barney (July 12, 2011). "Amazon urges California referendum on online tax". Financial Times. Archived from the original on July 15, 2011. Retrieved August 4, 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ Byers, Ann (2006), Jeff Bezos: the founder of Amazon.com, The Rosen Publishing Group, pp. 46–47
  13. "Amazon wkrótce w Polsce" (in Polish). PL: Wirtualna Polska. October 24, 2011. Retrieved January 11, 2012.
  14. "Amazon Spain launch may presage new overseas push", Reuters, September 14, 2011.
  15. "Person of the Year – Jeffrey P. Bezos". Time. December 27, 1999. Archived from the original on April 8, 2000. Retrieved January 5, 2008.
  16. "Amazon Company History". Retrieved May 6, 2013.
  17. Brandt, Richard L. (2011). One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com. Penguin Publishing. p. 228. ISBN 0670920665.
  18. Spiro, Josh. "The Great Leaders Series: Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com". Inc.com. Retrieved February 7, 2013.
  19. Rivlin, Gary (July 10, 2005). "A Retail Revolution Turns 10". The New York Times. Retrieved August 4, 2011.
  20. Spiro, Josh. "The Great Leaders Series: Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com".
  21. "Amazon.com Introduces New Logo; New Design Communicates Customer Satisfaction and A-to-Z Selection". Corporate IR.net. January 5, 2000.
  22. "Amazon company timeline". Corporate IR. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  23. "World's Largest Bookseller Opens on the Web". URLwire. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  24. Robert Spector (2002). Amazon.com: Get Big Fast.
  25. ^ "Forming a Plan, The Company Is Launched, One Million Titles". Reference for Business: Encyclopedia of Business, 2nd ed. Retrieved September 1, 2012.
  26. Junnarkar, Sandeep (August 4, 1998). "Amazon to buy two companies". USA: CNET News. Retrieved February 18, 2012.
  27. Beckett, Jamie (August 5, 1998). "Amazon To Purchase 2 'Net Firms". San Francisco Gate. Retrieved January 1, 2010.
  28. "Leading Internet Bookseller Amazon.com Acquires UK-Based Internet Bookstore Bookpages Ltd". UK. PR Newswire. Retrieved August 23, 2010.
  29. Brown, Derek (October 15, 2008). "Online giant Amazon.co.uk celebrates its 10th anniversary as shoppers use retailer website to buy goods". The Sun. London. Retrieved August 23, 2010.
  30. Siklos, Richard (March 10, 2006). "Amazon considering downloads". The New York Times. Retrieved January 1, 2010.
  31. "Amazon's shopping spree". BBC News. April 27, 1999. Retrieved January 1, 2010.
  32. The Cdnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet, by Jason Olim (Author), Matthew Olim (Author), Peter Kent (Author)
  33. "Amazon ups investment in China online shopping site". UK. Reuters. June 5, 2007. Retrieved January 1, 2010.
  34. Tedeschi, Bob (April 11, 2005). "Amazon Expands Into Book Printing". The New York Times. Retrieved January 1, 2010.
  35. "About". Mobipocket.com.
  36. "Franklin interest in company, retires shares". Philadelphia Business Journal. March 31, 2005. Retrieved June 14, 2010.
  37. "Amazon buys DVD-on-demand site". News. Com. Archived from the original on August 22, 2007. Retrieved August 3, 2007. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  38. "Wisconsin Technology Network: "Amazon acquires Madison-based Shopbop"". Wistechnology.com. February 27, 2006. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  39. "amazon.com Acquires Brilliance Audio". Taume News. May 27, 2007. Archived from the original on July 4, 2007. Retrieved May 28, 2007. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  40. Bill Briggs (June 25, 2008). "Amazon weaves Fabric.com into its e-commerce quilt". Internet Retailer. Archived from the original on July 21, 2010. Retrieved August 29, 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  41. Fritz, Ben (December 15, 2008). "IMDb links up with Box Office". Variety.
  42. Vancouver, The (August 2, 2008). "Amazon looks to fill niche with AbeBooks purchase". Canada.com. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  43. Gonsalves, Antone. "Amazon Buys Social Network For Book Lovers". Informationweek.com. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  44. Kawamoto, Dawn (October 22, 2008). "Amazon.com snaps up Reflexive Entertainment". news.cnet.com. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  45. "Xinhuanet.com". News.xinhuanet.com. July 23, 2009. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  46. Wauters, Robin (November 2, 2009). "Amazon Closes Zappos Deal, Ends Up Paying $1.2 Billion". TechCrunch. Archived from the original on January 23, 2010. Retrieved January 28, 2010. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  47. Stone, Brad (April 27, 2009). "Amazon Acquires Stanza, an E-Book Application for the iPhone". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 29, 2009. Retrieved April 27, 2009. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  48. "Image Recognition Startup SnapTell Acquired by Amazon Subsidiary A9.com". TechCrunch. June 16, 2009. Retrieved March 19, 2012.
  49. Bilton, Nick; Stone, Brad (February 4, 2010). "Amazon Said to Buy Touch Start-Up". The New York Times. Retrieved March 27, 2010.
  50. "Woot". woot.com. June 30, 2010. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  51. "Amazon Is To Take Full Control Of DVD And Game Rental-By-Post Firm Lovefilm". News. Sky. 2011‐1‐31. Retrieved August 4, 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  52. Chirgwin, Richard (2011‐07-04). "Amazon buys book depository". The Register. Retrieved 2012-09-06. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  53. "Amazon Acquires Pushbutton". pushbutton.tv. July 28. Archived from the original on 2012-09-07. Retrieved September 6, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  54. "Charlotte voice-to-text startup Yap quietly acquired by Amazon". News. CLTBlog. 2011‐11‐9. Retrieved November 9, 2011. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  55. Rusli, Evelyn (March 19, 2012). "Amazon.com Buys Kiva Systems for $775 Million". The New York Times. Retrieved March 19, 2012.
  56. Cook, John (2 February 2012). "Exclusive: Amazon.com buys TeachStreet". geekwire.com
  57. "Sources Say Amazon Acquired Siri Like Evi App for 26M is a Smartphone Coming?". TechCrunch. April 18, 2013. Retrieved April 18, 2013.
  58. "Amazon has reportedly acquired Evi for voice-guided search ?". Engadget. April 17, 2013. Retrieved April 18, 2013.
  59. "Amazon Gets Into Voice Recognition, Buys Ivona Software To Compete Against Apple's Siri". TechCrunch. Retrieved January 24, 2013.
  60. "Amazon Acquires Social Reading Site Goodreads, Which Gives The Company A Social Advantage Over Apple". TechCrunch. March 28, 2013. Retrieved March 29, 2013.
  61. "Amazon buys Liquavista from Samsung,launches Digital Currency". Reuters. May 13, 2013. Retrieved September 3, 2013.
  62. Olsen, Stefanie (July 14, 2008). "Amazon invests in Engine Yard's cloud computing". News.cnet.com. Retrieved August 4, 2011.
  63. Isaac, Mike (December 2, 2010). "LivingSocial Receives $175 Million Investment From Amazon". Forbes. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  64. McCracken, Harry, "Amazon's A9 Search as We Knew It: Dead!", PC World. September 29, 2006. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  65. Jonathan Birchall, New York, Amazon launches accessories brand in Japan, Financial Times. March 23, 2009. Retrieved September 6, 2012 (subscription required)
  66. Kawamoto, Dawn (May 23, 2007). "Amazon acquires Brilliance Audio". news.cnet.com. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  67. E-Commerce Times: Toys 'R' Us wins right to end Amazon partnership., March 3, 2006
  68. Diane Oswald (May 27, 2008). "Borders Returns to Online Sales, Drops Amazon". International Business Times.
  69. "Target Launches Redesigned E-Commerce Website". Target Corporation. August 23, 2011. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  70. "Benefit Cosmetics launches new ecommerce website in the US powered by hybris". Benefit Cosmetics. November 8, 2011. Retrieved September 10, 2011.
  71. Streitfeld, David (October 18, 2011). "Bookstores Drop Comics After Amazon Deal With DC". The New York Times.
  72. "Global locations". Amazon.com. Retrieved August 2013. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)
  73. Kirk Johnson; Nick Wingfield (August 25, 2013). "As Amazon Stretches, Seattle's Downtown Is Reshaped". The New York Times. Retrieved August 26, 2013.
  74. ^ Woo, Stu (July 1, 2011). "California Online Tax Law Pressures Amazon". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved February 25, 2012.
  75. Kirsner, Scott (December 23, 2011). "Amazon plans Cambridge office". Boston Globe. Retrieved February 22, 2012.
  76. "Charleston". a2z.com. Archived from the original on July 20, 2012. Retrieved February 25, 2012.
  77. "San Luis Obispo". a2z.com. Archived from the original on July 18, 2012. Retrieved February 25, 2012.
  78. "Amazon chooses 1stream call center solutions for South Africa", Retrieved, February 1, 2012.
  79. Fulfillment by Amazon from the company's website
  80. ^ Sarah O’Connor (February 8, 2013). "Amazon unpacked: The online giant is creating thousands of UK jobs, so why are some employees less than happy?". Financial Times. Retrieved February 8, 2013.
  81. Manahan, Kim. "Construction on Amazon warehouse to start by next month - Middletown, DE". Middletown Transcript. Retrieved March 19, 2012.
  82. Martin Griff / The Times of Trenton. "Amazon's prime location: Business experts say distribution hub in Mercer is ideal". NJ.com. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  83. Seanna Adcox (Associated Press) (June 8, 2011). "Amazon posts jobs for SC as deal becomes law". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  84. "Amazon Fulfillment Center in Lexington County, South Carolina Hiring for Hundreds of Full-time Jobs with Great Benefits". Amazon.com. Retrieved June 8, 2011.
  85. "Amazon hasn't closed its Irving distribution center, as it threatened". The Dallas Morning News. April 12, 2011. Retrieved July 12, 2011.
  86. James, Andrea (August 19, 2008). "A peek at the quietly expanding AmazonFresh". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved August 19, 2008.
  87. Gillie, John (May 5, 2011). "Amazon to open Sumner warehouse, hire several hundred". The News Tribune. Retrieved February 23, 2012.
  88. "Amazon to locate centre on Delta's Annacis Island". delta-optimist.com. Retrieved December 12, 2012.
  89. "Warehouse Deals address". Amazon.co.uk. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  90. "Call for jobs to go to locals". Wales Online. May 24, 2007. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  91. "Jobs boost as web warehouse opens". BBC News. April 16, 2008. Retrieved April 23, 2010.
  92. Giacomo Dotta (October 27, 2011). "Amazon mette radici in Italia". Webnews.it. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  93. "Amazon otvára v Bratislave centrum podpory predaja, hľadá 200 ľudí". profimedia.sk. June 14, 2011. Retrieved August 4, 2011.
  94. Flach, Tim (April 28, 2011). "McClatchy, Thursday, April 28, 2011". Mcclatchydc.com. Retrieved August 4, 2011.
  95. amazon.com shuttering 3 U.S. distribution centers, a March 2009 Computer World article
  96. Recent Layoffs at Area Technology Companies, a January 2001 SeattlePI article
  97. Wolverton, Troy (January 13, 2000). "Amazon adds East Coast customer service center". CNET. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  98. "Amazon.com Releases 2001 Second Quarter Results". thefreelibrary.com. July 23, 2001. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  99. Spector, Robert (2002). Amazon.com: Get Big Fast. HarperCollins. p. 243. ISBN 0066620422. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  100. Arrington, Michael (August 1, 2007). "Remember Webvan? So Does Amazon". TechCrunch.
  101. ^ CLAIRE CAIN MILLER (September 26, 2012). "Amazon Starts a Shopping Site for the Environmental Crowd". The New York Times. Retrieved October 9, 2012.
  102. "Amazon.com Subscribe & Save". Amazon. Retrieved July 21, 2011.
  103. Just heard - Amazon planning to expand into Fashion and Flipkart goes completely market-place. Howtobuybest.in (2013-08-09). Retrieved on 2013-08-16.
  104. "E-Books Top Hardcovers at Amazon". The New York Times. July 19, 2010. Archived from the original on July 21, 2010. Retrieved July 19, 2010. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  105. "amazon.com-News Release". Phx.corporate-ir.net. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  106. "Amazon MP3 Frequently Asked Questions". Amazon.com. September 9, 2009. Archived from the original on August 28, 2010. Retrieved August 29, 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  107. Cheng, Jacqui (August 6, 2007). "Amazon invests in social music site Amie Street". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on October 14, 2007. Retrieved September 26, 2007. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  108. "amazon.com Launches Public Beta of Amazon MP3". Home.businesswire.com. September 25, 2007. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  109. Leeds, Jeff (December 28, 2007). "Amazon to Sell Warner Music Minus Copy Protection". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 11, 2008. Retrieved January 12, 2009. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  110. "Amazon Adds Fourth Major Record Label To DRM-Free Music Store". InformationWeek. January 10, 2008. Retrieved January 12, 2009.
  111. Hansell, Saul (January 10, 2008). "Sony Drives Another Nail in the D.R.M. Coffin". The New York Times. Retrieved January 12, 2009.
  112. "Amazon MP3 Music Coming to UK'". Archived from the original on June 29, 2008. Retrieved February 1, 2008.
  113. "Amazon.com". Amazon.com. September 9, 2009. Archived from the original on August 28, 2010. Retrieved August 29, 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  114. Kyle Orland, Gamasutra. "Amazon Launches Mac Download Store To Compete With Apple." May 26, 2011. Retrieved May 31, 2011.
  115. Li, Anita. "Amazon Launches Game Studio, Gives Zynga Competition". Mashable.
  116. "Amazon launches its own digital music service". MSN News. January 10, 2013. Retrieved January 11, 2013.
  117. "Amazon to sell Warhol and Dali in online venture". BBC News. August 7, 2013. Retrieved August 8, 2013.
  118. "Amazon Art launches with masterpieces by Andy Warhol, Monet". Los Angeles Times. August 6, 2013. Retrieved August 8, 2013.
  119. "Amazon Prime". amazon.com. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  120. "Amazon Adds Instant Videos to Amazon Prime". phx.corporate.ir.net. February 22, 2011. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  121. "Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Unveiled", GalleyCat, Jason Boog, November 3, 2011.
  122. ^ U.S. Trademark registrations numbered 3216667 and 3266840/3266847, issued March 6, 2007 and July 17, 2007
  123. ^ Trademark Electronic Search System from the USPTO, supplying "PINZON" as the search term
  124. AmazonBasics, official website.
  125. Darren Murph (September 20, 2009). "AmazonBasics: Bezos and Co. starts private-label consumer electronics line". engadget.com. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  126. "Lady Gaga's $0.99 Album Download Overwhelms Amazon". Mashable. May 23, 2011.
  127. Amazon.com. "Self-Publish with Us". Amazon.com. Retrieved May 14, 2013.
  128. "Corporate-ir.net". Phx.corporate-ir.net. December 31, 2007. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  129. Mlot, Stephanie (August 21, 2012). "Amazon Launches Glacier Cloud Storage Service". PCMag.com.
  130. Panzarino, Matthew. (2013-03-04) Amazon Launches Mobile Ads API. Thenextweb.com. Retrieved on 2013-07-21.
  131. Amazon Publishing, official website.
  132. AmazonEncore, official website
  133. AmazonCrossing, official website.
  134. Montlake Romance, official website.
  135. Thomas & Mercer, official website.
  136. 47 North, official website.
  137. "SHORTS CUT OFF: AMAZON CLOSING STORY PROGRAM". Huffington Post. May 5, 2010. Retrieved April 26, 2012.
  138. "Amazon Shorts cancellation notice". Retrieved April 26, 2012.
  139. Graser, Marc (February 21, 2008). "Amazon, Fox nursing 'Stolen Child'". Variety. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  140. Justice, Glen (November 6, 2004). "Kerry Kept Money Coming With the Internet as His ATM". The New York Times. Retrieved February 2, 2013.
  141. More than $43 Million Raised by Consumer Programs for Red Cross Tsunami Relief, American Red Cross press release, January 21, 2005.
  142. "AmazonLocal: Media Room". Local.amazon.com. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  143. Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (June 2, 2011). "Amazon.com: Amazon Local Is Its Foray Into The Daily Deal Space". Business Insider. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  144. Dillow, Clay (July 9, 2009). "AmazonWireless Offers Phones and Plans, Minus the Cellular Store". Fast Company (magazine). Retrieved September 7, 2009.
  145. Jackson, Rob (July 9, 2009). "Amazon launches AmazonWireless.com". phandroid.com. Retrieved September 7, 2009.
  146. "And the Lights Go Up on SoundUnwound!". Soundunwoundblog.com. September 1, 2008. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  147. Amazon Webstore Pricing - Find the Plan That Fits Your Business. Webstore.amazon.com. Retrieved on 2013-08-16.
  148. SnapShot of amazon.com, walmart.com. Retrieved April 12, 2008.
  149. "SnapShot of amazon.com (rank #11) - Compete". Siteanalytics.compete.com. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  150. Pepitone, Julianne (December 9, 2010). "Why attackers can't take down Amazon.com". CNN. Retrieved December 14, 2010. Amazon has famously massive server capacity in order to handle the December e-commerce rush. That short holiday shopping window is so critical, and so intense, that even a few minutes of downtime could cost Amazon millions.
  151. Business Wire (May 3, 2010). "2010 Social Shopping Study Reveals Changes in Consumers' Online Shopping Habits and Usage of Customer Reviews". Business Wire. Retrieved January 31, 2013. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  152. Spector, Robert (2002). amazon.com. p. 132.
  153. "BEACON SPOTLIGHT: Amazon.com rave book reviews - too good to be true? - Cincinnati blog, Cincinnati news, Cincinnati politics". The Cincinnati Beacon. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  154. Fagge, Nick (November 29, 2010). "Women writers at war over fake book reviews on Amazon". Daily Mail. London.
  155. David Streitfeld (January 20, 2013). "Swarming a Book Online". The New York Times. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
  156. "Amazon's online reader ''Search Inside'' reference". Amazon.com. September 9, 2009. Archived from the original on August 28, 2010. Retrieved August 29, 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  157. "''Search Inside'' reference". Amazon.com. September 9, 2009. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  158. Eric Ward (October 23, 2003). "Amazon.com Launches "Search Inside the Book" Feature". Urlwire.com. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  159. "AMAZON ENTERS THE CLOUD COMPUTING BUSINESS" (PDF). Retrieved May 29, 2013. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  160. "Amazon.co.uk Associates: The web's most popular and successful Affiliate Program". Affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk. July 9, 2010. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  161. "Amazon Seller Product Suggestions". Amazonservices.com. Retrieved August 29, 2010.
  162. Ina Steiner (January 24, 2010). "Seller's Choice: Merchants Rate Ecommerce Marketplaces". Auctionbytes.com. Archived from the original on June 29, 2010. Retrieved June 9, 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  163. Ina Steiner (January 24, 2010). "Seller's Choice Marketplace Ratings: Amazon". Auctionbytes.com. Retrieved June 29, 2010.
  164. ^ "Amazon FAQ". Retrieved September 5, 2011.
  165. "Amazon.com Movers and shakers". Retrieved September 5, 2011.
  166. "Amazon.com Author Central". Retrieved September 5, 2011.
  167. "Frequently Asked Questions about Amazon.com". Amazon.com. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  168. "How Amazon Works". Retrieved November 25, 2011.
  169. Letzing, John (January 31, 2013). "Amazon Suffers Outage for Nearly an Hour". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  170. "How Amazon Works". Retrieved December 15, 2011.
  171. "Help". Retrieved December 16, 2011.
  172. "SWOT Analysis Amazon". Retrieved December 17, 2011.
  173. "BBC News - Amazon reports loss led by its stake in LivingSocial". Bbc.co.uk. October 25, 2012. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  174. Nick Leiber (December 7, 2011). "Amazon Lure's Shoppers Away from Stores". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Retrieved December 7, 2011.
  175. Slatterly, Brennon. "Amazon 'Glitch' Yanks Sales Rank of Hundreds of LGBT Books". PC World. Retrieved July 28, 2012.
  176. Armstrong, Paul (November 28, 2000). "Amazon: 'Glitch' caused gay censorship error". CNN. Retrieved July 28, 2012.
  177. Raice, Shayndi (December 20, 2011). "Groupon Launches Anti-Amazon Promotion of Sorts". The Wall Street Journal.
  178. "Focus on Mobile Commerce - While some still cry, others fight back". Internet Retailer. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  179. "What can retailers learn from Amazon, Groupon and eBay? - Mobile Commerce Daily - Multichannel retail support". Mobile Commerce Daily. December 20, 2011. Archived from the original on September 5, 2012. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
  180. ^ Amazon's Physical Presence (Nexus) in U.S. States Resource compiled by American Independent Business Alliance Cite error: The named reference "amiba" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  181. Kyung M. Song (May 21, 2011). "Battle over Internet sales taxes rekindles in Congress". The Seattle Times. Retrieved May 23, 2011.
  182. Kristina Peterson (December 1, 2011). "Amazon Tells Lawmakers It Supports Sales Tax". Wall St Journal. Retrieved December 1, 2011.
  183. "Starbucks, Google and Amazon grilled over tax avoidance". BBC. BBC.com. November 12, 2012.
  184. "Corporation Tax Transparency Call From KPMG". Sky News. Sky.com. November 30, 2012.
  185. "How to shop and ensure your cash isn't going to a tax haven". Guardian. December 7, 2012.
  186. Hsu, Alex (July 1, 2013). "Chinese Government Planning to Tighten Intellectual Property Regulation of Apple, Amazon, and Taobao". BrightWire News.
  187. "Amazon.com Business Review in Seattle, WA - Alaska, Oregon and Western Washington BBB". Bbb.org. June 13, 2012. Retrieved February 20, 2013.
  188. "Help: Participation Agreement". Amazon.com. Retrieved January 31, 2013.
  189. Amazon under fire for staffing practices in Randstad contract | Business intelligence for recruitment and resourcing professionals. Recruiter.co.uk (2013-08-02). Retrieved on 2013-08-16.
  190. Yarrow, Jay; Kovach, Steve (September 20, 2011). "10 Crazy Rules That Could Get You Fired From Amazon Warehouses". Business Insider. Retrieved April 21, 2013.
  191. O'Connor, Sarah (February 8, 2013). "Amazon unpacked". Financial Times. Retrieved April 21, 2013.
  192. "Kritik an Arbeitsbedingungen bei Amazon". tagesschau.de. Retrieved February 20, 2013.
  193. "Ausgeliefert! Leiharbeiter ... - Ausgeliefert! Leiharbeiter bei Amazon - Reportage & Dokumentation - ARD | Das Erste". Daserste.de. February 13, 2013. Retrieved February 20, 2013.
  194. Tony Paterson (February 14, 2013). "Amazon 'used neo-Nazi guards to keep immigrant workforce under control' in Germany - Europe - World". The Independent. Retrieved February 20, 2013.
  195. "Germany to probe claims of staff abuse". Globaltimes.cn. Retrieved February 20, 2013.
  196. Associated Press (February 14, 2013). "Amazon to investigate reports temporary staff in Germany were mistreated". Washingtonpost.com. Retrieved February 20, 2013.
  197. Tagged by their bosses, zero-hour Amazon workers: Employees are not guaranteed any income | Mail Online. Dailymail.co.uk (2013-08-02). Retrieved on 2013-08-16.
  198. Anger at Amazon working conditions - Channel 4 News. Channel4.com (2013-08-01). Retrieved on 2013-08-16.
  199. "Amazon spends $450K on lobbying government in 2Q". Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Associated Press. August 16, 2011. Retrieved August 18, 2011.
  200. Parkhurst, Emily (May 24, 2012). "Amazon shareholders met by protesters, company cuts ties with ALEC".
  201. Malik, Om (November 21, 2008). "The Growing Ex-Amazon Club and Why It's a Good Thing". GigaOM.
  202. "StartupDunia". startupdunia.com. January 8, 2008. Retrieved September 6, 2012.
  203. "Choose Your Career". Inside Jobs. Retrieved September 6, 2012.

Further reading

External links

Amazon
People
Current
Former
Facilities
Products and
services
Subsidiaries
Cloud
computing
Services
Devices
Technology
Media
Retail
Logistics
Former
Litigation
Other
Unions
Category
Links to related articles
Companies of the Nasdaq-100 index
Seattle-based Corporations (within the Seattle metropolitan area)
Seattle and SeaTac-based Fortune 1000 corporations
Puget Sound-based Fortune 1000 corporations
Major Seattle- and Puget Sound-based non-public
or externally owned corporations
Categories: