Amazon.com, Inc. is a
multinationalA multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
electronic commerceElectronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online...
company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries:
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
,
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
,
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
,
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
,
ItalyItaly , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
,
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
,
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and
ChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
. It may also launch websites in Netherlands, Sweden, and India. It also provides international shipping to certain countries for some of its products.
Jeff BezosJeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos is the founder, president, chief executive officer , and chairman of the board of Amazon.com.-Early life and background:...
founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994, and the site went online in 1995. It is named after the
Amazon RiverThe Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...
, one of the largest rivers in the world. Amazon.com started as an online bookstore, but soon diversified, selling
DVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s,
CDsThe Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
,
MP3MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
downloads,
computer softwareComputer software, or just software, is a collection of computer programs and related data that provide the instructions for telling a computer what to do and how to do it....
, video games,
electronicsConsumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
, apparel, furniture, food, and toys.
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.
The company began as an online bookstore. While the largest brick-and-mortar bookstores and mail-order catalogs might offer 200,000 titles, an online bookstore could sell far more. 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" and it was the river he considered the biggest in the world, as he hoped his company would be. 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 HofstadterDouglas Richard Hofstadter is an American academic whose research focuses on consciousness, analogy-making, artistic creation, literary translation, and discovery in mathematics and physics...
's
Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of ThoughtFluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought is a 1995 book by Douglas Hofstadter and other members of the Fluid Analogies Research Group exploring the mechanisms of intelligence through computer modeling...
. In 1996, it was reincorporated in
DelawareDelaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
. Amazon issued its
initial public offeringAn initial public offering or stock market launch, is the first sale of stock by a private company to the public. It can be used by either small or large companies to raise expansion capital and become publicly traded enterprises...
of
stockThe capital stock of a business entity represents the original capital paid into or invested in the business by its founders. It serves as a security for the creditors of a business since it cannot be withdrawn to the detriment of the creditors...
on May 15, 1997, trading under the
NASDAQThe NASDAQ Stock Market, also known as the NASDAQ, is an American stock exchange. "NASDAQ" originally stood for "National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations". It is the second-largest stock exchange by market capitalization in the world, after the New York Stock Exchange. As of...
stock exchange symbol
AMZN, at a price of
US$The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
18.00 per share ($1.50 after three
stock splitA stock split or stock divide increases the number of shares in a public company. The price is adjusted such that the before and after market capitalization of the company remains the same and dilution does not occur. Options and warrants are included....
s in the late 1990s).
Amazon's initial
business planA business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals....
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 bubbleThe dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
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. The profit, although it was modest, served to demonstrate that the business model could be profitable. In 1999,
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine named Bezos the
Person of the YearPerson of the Year is an annual issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features and profiles a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."- History :The tradition of selecting a Man of the Year...
, recognizing the company's success in popularizing online shopping.
Barnes and Noble filed a lawsuit on 12 May 1997, alleging that Amazon's claim to be "the world's largest bookstore" was false. Barnes and Noble 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." Walmart subsequently filed 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 caused Amazon to implement internal restrictions and reassignment of the former Walmart executives.
Acquisitions
- 1998: Bookpages.co.uk, a UK online book retailer, which became Amazon UK on October 15, 1998.
- 1999: Internet Movie Database
Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
(IMDb).; Cambridge, MassachusettsCambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
-based PlanetAllPlanetAll was a social networking, calendaring, and address book site launched in November 1996. It was founded by a group of Harvard Business School and MIT graduates including and...
, a reminder service; Sunnyvale-based Junglee.com, an XMLExtensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
-based data miningData mining , a relatively young and interdisciplinary field of computer science is the process of discovering new patterns from large data sets involving methods at the intersection of artificial intelligence, machine learning, statistics and database systems...
startup Alexa InternetAlexa Internet, Inc. is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon.com that is known for its toolbar and Web site. Once installed, the toolbar collects data on browsing behavior which is transmitted to the Web site where it is stored and analyzed and is the basis for the company's Web traffic...
, Accept.com, and Exchange.com
- 2003: Online music retailer CD Now.
- 2004: Joyo.com
Amazon.cn , formerly Joyo.com and Joyo Amazon , is a Chinese shopping website located in Beijing. In 2004, it was acquired by Amazon.com.-Original:Joyo.com was an IT information service and download website before 2000....
, a Chinese e-commerce website.
- 2005: BookSurge, a print on demand
Print on demand , sometimes called, in error, publish on demand, is a printing technology and business process in which new copies of a book are not printed until an order has been received...
company, and Mobipocket.com, an eBook software company. CreateSpace.com (formerly CustomFlix), a Scotts Valley, CaliforniaScotts Valley is a small city in Santa Cruz County, California, United States, about thirty miles south of downtown San Jose and six miles north of Monterey Bay, in the upland slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 11,580...
-based distributor of on-demand DVDs. CreateSpace has since expanded to include on-demand books, CDs, and video.
- 2006: Shopbop, a Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
-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
Audible.com is an Internet provider of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming.Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers....
; Fabric.com; Box Office MojoBox Office Mojo is a website that tracks box office revenue in a systematic, algorithmic way. Brandon Gray started the site in 1999. In 2002, Gray partnered with Sean Saulsbury and they grew the site to nearly two million readers when, in July 2008, the company was purchased by Amazon.com through...
; AbeBooksAbeBooks is an online marketplace for books. Most books listed are used, many are rare or out-of-print, and a growing number are new books. The company is based in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, with offices in Düsseldorf, Germany, and in the US. It was incorporated in 1995 and launched its...
; ShelfariShelfari is a social cataloging website for books. Shelfari users build virtual bookshelves of the titles they own or have read, and can rate, review, tag, and discuss their books. Users can also create groups that other members may join, create discussions, and talk about books, or other topics...
; (including a 40% stake in LibraryThingLibraryThing is a social cataloging web application for storing and sharing book catalogs and various types of book metadata. It is used by individuals, authors, libraries and publishers....
and whole ownership of Bookfinder.com, Gojaba.com, and FillZ); Reflexive EntertainmentReflexive Entertainment is a computer game developer based in Lake Forest, California. The company was founded by Lars Brubaker in 1997...
, a casual video game development company.
- 2009: Zappos, an online shoe and apparel retailer Lexcycle
Lexcycle is a software company that makes electronic book reading software. They are responsible for Stanza, which runs on the iPhone, iPod Touch, Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms. In April 2009, Lexcycle was acquired by Amazon.com....
- 2010: Touchco., Woot
Woot usually refers to the slang term, w00t. Woot may also refer to:* Woot, an e-commerce retailer that offers one deal a day to its consumers* WOOT-LP, a defunct television station in Chambersburg, Tennessee...
, QuidsiDiapers.com, founded in 2005 by Marc Lore and Vinit Bharara in Montclair, NJ, is the largest online specialty retailer for baby products. Initially founded as 1-800 Diapers, the company set out delivering consumables, such as diapers, wipes, and formula, to parents with free 1-2 day shipping and a...
, BuyVIP, Amie StreetAmie Street was an indie online music store and social network service created in 2006 by Brown University seniors Elliott Breece, Elias Roman, and Joshua Boltuch, in Providence, Rhode Island...
.
- 2011: Lovefilm
LoveFilm is a UK-based provider of home video and video game rental through DVD-by-mail and streaming video on demand in the UK, Germany and Scandinavia...
, The Book DepositoryThe Book Depository is a UK-based online book seller. The company is notable for its worldwide free shipping* to over 90 countries.On 4th July 2011, Amazon reached an agreement to acquire The Book Depository-History:...
, PushbuttonPushbutton is a UK-based digital agency specialising in designing, developing, and delivering interactive television.As one of the industry forerunners creating rich interactive television experiences, Pushbutton have graduated from traditional 'red button' services for Sky, ITV, Disney, National...
Investment
- 2008: Engine Yard
Engine Yard is a San Francisco, California based company focused on Ruby on Rails deployment and management-Software development:One of Engine Yard's four founders, Ezra Zygmuntowicz, was the creator of the Merb project, and the company continued supporting the project by hiring Yehuda Katz to work...
, a Ruby-on-Rails platform-as-a-service (PaaSPaas is a brand of Easter egg dye. It is currently owned by Signature Brands, LLC.-History:The original PAAS Easter egg dye was invented by an American named William Townley. Townley was an owner of a drug store in Newark, New Jersey, where he concocted recipes for home products...
) company.
- 2010: LivingSocial
-Business model:LivingSocial offers a new deal each day to its members who subscribe via email. Once a deal has been purchased, members are e-mailed their redemption vouchers the following business day, around 5 a.m. local time...
, a local deal site.
Subsidiaries
- 2004: A9.com
A9.com is a subsidiary of Amazon.com based in Palo Alto, California that develops search engine technology. A9 currently has over 100 employees in its Palo Alto, Bangalore, and Dublin offices.A9 has worked in 3 areas over the years....
, a company focused on researching and building innovative technologyTechnology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
.
- 2004: Lab126
Lab126, Inc is a small, Cupertino, California-based subsidiary of Amazon.com, best known for developing Amazon's Kindle device. Lab126 is led by Gregg Zehr. In addition to the Kindle, Lab126 is developing other "easy-to-use, highly integrated consumer products to serve Amazon customers"....
, developers of integrated consumer electronics such as the KindleThe Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
.
- 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
The website
CDNOWCDNOW.com was an online retailer. The company was founded in February 1994 by twin brothers Jason Olim and Matthew Olim of Ambler, Pennsylvania...
is managed 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 due to a lawsuit. Amazon also hosted and managed the website for
Borders bookstoresBorders Group, Inc. was an international book and music retailer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The company employed approximately 19,500 throughout the U.S., primarily in its Borders and Waldenbooks stores....
but this ceased in 2008. From its inception until August 2011, Amazon hosted the retail website for
TargetTarget Corporation, doing business as Target, is an American retailing company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, behind Walmart. The company is ranked at number 33 on the Fortune 500 and is a component of the Standard & Poor's...
.
Amazon.com operates retail web sites for
Sears CanadaSears Canada Inc. is a retailer, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, that operates in all provinces and territories across Canada with a network of 196 corporate stores, 195 dealer stores, 38 home improvement showrooms, 108 Sears Travel offices and a nationwide home maintenance, repair, and...
, Benefit Cosmetics,
bebe Storesbebe stores are an American clothing retailer founded in 1976. The name was inspired by, and is pronounced as in, the phrase "to be or not to be" from the play Hamlet. Manny Mashouf, who emigrated to the United States in the early 1970s, opened the first bebe store in San Francisco during a time...
, Timex,
Marks & SpencerMarks and Spencer plc is a British retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London, with over 700 stores in the United Kingdom and over 300 stores spread across more than 40 countries. It specialises in the selling of clothing and luxury food products...
,
MothercareMothercare plc is a British retailer which specialises in products for expectant mothers and in general merchandise for children up to 8 years old. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.-History:...
, and Lacoste. For a growing number of
enterpriseA business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
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 ServicesAmazon Web Services is a collection of remote computing services that together make up a cloud computing platform, offered over the Internet by Amazon.com...
also powers
AOLAOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
's Shop@AOL.
On October 18, 2011, Amazon.com announced 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.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. The european headquarters are located in
LuxembourgLuxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland in the south...
's capital Luxembourg City.
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
SloughSlough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...
(
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
) and
EdinburghEdinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
(
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
),
Dublin (
IrelandIreland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
),
BangaloreBengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
,
ChennaiChennai , formerly known as Madras or Madarasapatinam , is the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, located on the Coromandel Coast off the Bay of Bengal. Chennai is the fourth most populous metropolitan area and the sixth most populous city in India...
, and Hyderabad (
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
),
Cape TownCape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
(
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
),
IaşiIași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
(
RomaniaRomania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
),
Shibuyais one of the 23 special wards of Tokyo, Japan. As of 2008, it has an estimated population of 208,371 and a population density of 13,540 persons per km². The total area is 15.11 km²....
,
Tokyo, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
(
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
),
BeijingBeijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
(
ChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
),
Orange CountyOrange County is a county in the U.S. state of California. Its county seat is Santa Ana. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,010,232, up from 2,846,293 at the 2000 census, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County...
(
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
), San Francisco (
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
),
TempeTempe is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, USA, with the Census Bureau reporting a 2010 population of 161,719. The city is named after the Vale of Tempe in Greece. Tempe is located in the East Valley section of metropolitan Phoenix; it is bordered by Phoenix and Guadalupe on the west, Scottsdale...
(
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
), and
VancouverVancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, and
TorontoToronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
(
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
).
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
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
and GoodyearGoodyear is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the city is 65,275...
, AZ; New CastleNew Castle is a city in New Castle County, Delaware, six miles south of Wilmington, situated on the Delaware River. In 1900, 3,380 people lived here; in 1910, 3,351...
, DE; Whitestown-External links:*...
and PlainfieldAs of the census of 2000, there were 18,396 people, 7,051 households, and 4,914 families residing in the town. The population density was 1,023.1 people per square mile . There were 7,449 housing units at an average density of 414.3 per square mile...
, IN; CoffeyvilleCoffeyville is a city situated along the Verdigris River in the southeastern part of Montgomery County, located in Southeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 10,295...
, KS; CampbellsvilleCampbellsville is a city in Taylor County, Kentucky, United States. The population within city limits was 10,498 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Taylor County, and the home of Campbellsville University...
, HebronHebron is an unincorporated community in Boone County, Kentucky, United States. It is the location of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, which serves Cincinnati and the tri-state area.- Growth :...
(near CincinnatiCincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
), LexingtonLexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky and the 63rd largest in the US. Known as the "Thoroughbred City" and the "Horse Capital of the World", it is located in the heart of Kentucky's Bluegrass region...
and LouisvilleLouisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, KY; FernleyFernley is a city in Lyon County, Nevada, United States, within Reno-Sparks-Lake Tahoe metropolitan. The city incorporated in 2001, including land in Washoe County; prior to that it was a census-designated place . The population of the CDP was 8,543 at the 2000 census; the city itself had an...
and North Las VegasNorth Las Vegas is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States, located in the Las Vegas metropolitan area. The city was incorporated on May 16, 1946.-Geography:...
, NV; Nashua-Climate:-Demographics:As of the census of 2010, there were 86,494 people, 35,044 households, and 21,876 families residing in the city. The population density was 2,719.9 people per square mile . There were 37,168 housing units at an average density of 1,202.8 per square mile...
, NH; CarlisleCarlisle is a borough in and the county seat of Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The name is traditionally pronounced with emphasis on the second syllable. Carlisle is located within the Cumberland Valley, a highly productive agricultural region. As of the 2010 census, the borough...
, HazletonHazleton is a city in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 25,340 at the 2010 census, an increase of 8.6% from the 2000 census count .-Greater Hazleton:...
, AllentownAllentown is a city located in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is Pennsylvania's third most populous city, after Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and the 215th largest city in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 118,032 and is currently...
, LewisberryLewisberry is a borough in York County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 362 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Lewisberry is located at ....
, PA; LexingtonLexington is a town in and the county seat of Lexington County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 17,870 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Lexington is located at ....
, SC; ChattanoogaChattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
, TN; and IrvingIrving is a city located in the U.S. state of Texas within Dallas County. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city population was 216,290. Irving is within the Dallas–Plano–Irving metropolitan division of the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area, designated...
, TX (between DallasDallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
and Fort WorthFort Worth is the 16th-largest city in the United States of America and the fifth-largest city in the state of Texas. Located in North Central Texas, just southeast of the Texas Panhandle, the city is a cultural gateway into the American West and covers nearly in Tarrant, Parker, Denton, and...
); SterlingSterling, Virginia is a census-designated place in Loudoun County, Virginia. The population as of the 2010 Census was 27,822.It is located northwest of Herndon, east of Ashburn, and west of Great Falls, and includes part of Dulles International Airport and the former AOL corporate headquarters...
, VA; BellevueBellevue is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, across Lake Washington from Seattle. Long known as a suburb or satellite city of Seattle, it is now categorized as an edge city or a boomburb. The population was 122,363 at the 2010 census.Downtown Bellevue is...
, WA.
- Canada: Mississauga, Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
- Europe:
- England: Marston Gate, near Brogborough
Brogborough is a village and civil parish in the Central Bedfordshire district of Bedfordshire, England, by junction 13 of the M1 motorway. According to the 2001, census it had a population of 343...
, BedfordshireBedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....
; PeterboroughPeterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea...
; DoncasterDoncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...
.
- Scotland: Gourock
Gourock is a town falling within the Inverclyde council area and formerly forming a burgh of the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It has in the past functioned as a seaside resort on the Firth of Clyde...
, InverclydeInverclyde is one of 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. Together with the Renfrewshire and East Renfrewshire council areas, Inverclyde forms part of the historic county of Renfrewshire - which current exists as a registration county and lieutenancy area - located in the west...
; GlenrothesGlenrothes is a large town situated in the heart of Fife, in east-central Scotland. It is located approximately from both Edinburgh, which lies to the south and Dundee to the north. The town had an estimated population of 38,750 in 2008, making Glenrothes the third largest settlement in Fife...
(Closed - Moved to Dunfermline 14th November 2011), DunfermlineDunfermline is a town and former Royal Burgh in Fife, Scotland, on high ground from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. According to a 2008 estimate, Dunfermline has a population of 46,430, making it the second-biggest settlement in Fife. Part of the town's name comes from the Gaelic word...
(FifeFife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...
) Officially opened 15th November 2011
- Wales: Crymlyn Burrows
Crymlyn Burrows is an area of land in Wales, UK to the east of Swansea city centre, and south of Crymlyn Bog. It is bounded by Jersey Marine Beach to the south and the River Neath to the east...
, SwanseaSwansea is a coastal city and county in Wales. Swansea is in the historic county boundaries of Glamorgan. Situated on the sandy South West Wales coast, the county area includes the Gower Peninsula and the Lliw uplands...
near Jersey MarineJersey Marine is a village in Neath Port Talbot county borough, Wales, UK located about east of Swansea. It falls within the Coedffranc West ward....
- France: Boigny-sur-Bionne
Boigny-sur-Bionne is a commune in the Loiret department in north-central France.IBM has an office in Boigny-sur-Bionne....
(2000) and SaranSaran is a commune in the Loiret department in north-central France.Saran has, compared to its size, many sports facilities including two stadiums, indoor and outdoor tennis courts, one swimming pool and four gymnasiums. This is due to the policy of the communist mayor of Saran, Michel Guérin, that...
(2007), LoiretLoiret is a department in north-central FranceThe department is named after the river Loiret, a tributary of the Loire. The Loiret is located wholly within the department.- History :...
; MontélimarMontélimar is a commune in the Drôme department in southeastern France. It is the second-largest town in the department after Valence.-History:...
, DrômeDrôme , a department in southeastern France, takes its name from the Drôme River.-History:The French National Constituent Assembly set up Drôme as one of the original 83 departments of France on March 4, 1790, during the French Revolution...
(2010)
- Germany: Bad Hersfeld
The festival and spa town of Bad Hersfeld is the district seat of Hersfeld-Rotenburg district in northeastern Hesse, Germany, roughly 50 km southeast of Kassel....
, Hessen; LeipzigLeipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
, Saxony
- Italy: Emilia-Romagna
Emilia–Romagna is an administrative region of Northern Italy comprising the two historic regions of Emilia and Romagna. The capital is Bologna; it has an area of and about 4.4 million inhabitants....
: Castel San GiovanniCastel San Giovanni is a town and comune in the province of Piacenza, Emilia-Romagna, Italy.- History :...
(2011)
- Slovakia: Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
(2011)
- Asia:
- Japan: Ichikawa
is a city located in northwest Chiba, Japan, approximately 20 kilometers from the center of Tokyo. The city was founded on November 3, 1934. As of January 1, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 474,586 and a density of 8,259.42 persons per km². The total area is 57.46 km²...
and Yachiyois a city located in northern Chiba Prefecture, Japan. As of August 2011, the town had an estimated population of 193,262 and a population density of 3769 persons per km²...
, Chibais a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region and the Greater Tokyo Area. Its capital is Chiba City.- History :Chiba Prefecture was established on June 15, 1873 with the merger of Kisarazu Prefecture and Inba Prefecture...
; Sakaiis a city in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It has been one of the largest and most important seaports of Japan since the Medieval era.Following the February 2005 annexation of the town of Mihara, from Minamikawachi District, the city has grown further and is now the fourteenth most populous city in...
and Daitois a city located in Osaka, Japan.-Railways:*West Japan Railway Company**Katamachi Line Suminodo Station - Nozaki Station - Shijonawate Station-Education:...
, Osakais a prefecture located in the Kansai region on Honshū, the main island of Japan. The capital is the city of Osaka. It is the center of Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto area.- History :...
; Kawagoeis a city located in Saitama Prefecture, Japan, and is about a 30-minute train ride from Ikebukuro in Tokyo.As of July 1, 2011, the city has an estimated population of 343,926...
, Saitamais a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of the island of Honshu. The capital is the city of Saitama.This prefecture is part of the Greater Tokyo Area, and most of Saitama's cities can be described as suburbs of Tokyo, to which a large amount of residents commute each day.- History...
- China: Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
, SuzhouSuzhou , previously transliterated as Su-chou, Suchow, and Soochow, is a major city located in the southeast of Jiangsu Province in Eastern China, located adjacent to Shanghai Municipality. The city is situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Taihu Lake and is a part...
, Beijing
Closed fulfillment, warehousing & customer service locations
-
- These U.S. distribution centers have been closed: Red Rock, Nevada; Chambersburg, Pennsylvania
Chambersburg is a borough in the South Central region of Pennsylvania, United States. It is miles north of Maryland and the Mason-Dixon line and southwest of Harrisburg in the Cumberland Valley, which is part of the Great Appalachian Valley. Chambersburg is the county seat of Franklin County...
; Munster, IndianaMunster is a town located in North Township, Lake County, in Northwest Indiana in the United States. This bedroom community lies in the Chicago metropolitan area, approximately southeast of the Chicago Loop, and shares municipal boundaries with Hammond to the north, Highland to the east, Dyer and...
; and McDonough, GeorgiaMcDonough is a city in Henry County, Georgia, United States. The population was 22084 at the 2010 census. Inclusion of the unincorporated neighborhoods surrounding McDonough, which are not part of a town/city, raises the population to approximately 30,000 from an estimate in 2008. The city is the...
.
- From 2000 until Feb 2001 there was an Amazon customer service based in The Hague, Netherlands.
Products and services
Amazon product lines include books, music CDs,
videotapesThe Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and DVDs, software,
consumer electronicsConsumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
, kitchen items, tools, lawn and garden items, toys & games, baby products, apparel, sporting goods, gourmet food, jewelry, watches, health and personal-care items,
beauty productsCosmetics are substances used to enhance the appearance or odor of the human body. Cosmetics include skin-care creams, lotions, powders, perfumes, lipsticks, fingernail and toe nail polish, eye and facial makeup, towelettes, permanent waves, colored contact lenses, hair colors, hair sprays and...
, 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
eBayeBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
's large market share. amazon.com Auctions was followed by the launch of a fixed-price
marketplaceA marketplace is the space, actual, virtual or metaphorical, in which a market operates. The term is also used in a trademark law context to denote the actual consumer environment, ie. the 'real world' in which products and services are provided and consumed.-Marketplaces and street markets:A...
business, zShops, in September 1999, and the now defunct
Sotheby'sSotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
/Amazon partnership called
amazon.com in November. Auctions and zShops evolved into
Amazon MarketplaceAmazon Marketplace is Amazon.com's fixed-price online marketplace that allows sellers to offer new and used items alongside Amazon's offerings, and customers to buy those items directly from the third party sellers using amazon.com's infrastructure....
, 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.comHalf.com is a subsidiary of eBay, in which sellers offer items at fixed prices, usually items that have a UPC, ISBN or other kind of SKU, rather than rare, old or collectible items...
service.
In August 2005, Amazon began selling products under its own
private labelPrivate label products or services are typically those manufactured or provided by one company for offer under another company's brand. Private label goods and services are available in a wide range of industries from food to cosmetics to web hosting...
, "Pinzon"; the
trademarkA trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
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. 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.
Amazon MP3Amazon MP3 is an online music store owned and operated by Amazon.com. Launched in public beta on September 25, 2007, in January 2008 it became the first music store to sell music without digital rights management from the four major music labels , as well as many independents...
, its own online music store, launched in the US on September 25, 2007, selling downloads exclusively in MP3 format without
digital rights managementDigital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
. This was the first online offering of DRM-free music from all four major record companies.
In August 2007, Amazon announced
AmazonFreshAmazonFresh is a subsidiary of the Amazon.com American e-commerce company in Seattle, Washington. It is reviving the business model of ordering groceries online for home delivery first popularized by such companies as HomeGrocer.com and Webvan in the late '90s....
, 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, WashingtonMercer Island is a city in King County, Washington, United States and the name of the island in Lake Washington on which the city sits. The population was 22,699 at the 2010 census....
, and was later expanded to several
ZIP codeZIP codes are a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service since 1963. The term ZIP, an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan, is properly written in capital letters and was chosen to suggest that the mail travels more efficiently, and therefore more quickly, when senders use the...
s in Seattle proper. AmazonFresh also operated pick-up locations in the suburbs of
BellevueBellevue is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, across Lake Washington from Seattle. Long known as a suburb or satellite city of Seattle, it is now categorized as an edge city or a boomburb. The population was 122,363 at the 2010 census.Downtown Bellevue is...
and
KirklandKirkland is a city in King County, Washington, United States. It is a suburb of Seattle on the Eastside . The population was 48,787 at the 2010 census makes it the 9th largest city in King County and the 20th largest city in the state...
from summer 2007 through early 2008.
In 2008 Amazon expanded into film production, producing the film
The Stolen Child with
20th Century FoxTwentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
.
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 PaymentsAmazon Payments, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com that provides a means to process transactions online. Launched in 2006, Amazon Payments uses the consumer base of Amazon.com and focuses on giving users the same checkout experience available on Amazon.com.Amazon Payments has several...
. Amazon launched
Amazon Web ServicesAmazon Web Services is a collection of remote computing services that together make up a cloud computing platform, offered over the Internet by Amazon.com...
(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 KatrinaHurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
, and the 2004
earthquake and tsunami in the Indian OceanThe 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...
. 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
byteThe byte is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, a byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the basic addressable element in many computer...
to 5
terabyteThe terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix tera means 1012 in the International System of Units , and therefore 1 terabyte is , or 1 trillion bytes, or 1000 gigabytes. 1 terabyte in binary prefixes is 0.9095 tebibytes, or 931.32 gibibytes...
s 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 ServiceAmazon Simple Queue Service is a distributed queue messaging service introduced by Amazon.com in April of 2006. It supports programmatic sending of messages via web service applications as a way to communicate over the internet...
(Amazon SQS), a distributed queue messaging service, and product
wikiA wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
s (later folded into Amapedia) and
discussion forumsAn Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
for certain products using guidelines that follow standard message board conventions. Also in 2006, Amazon introduced
Amazon Elastic Compute CloudAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud is a central part of Amazon.com's cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services . EC2 allows users to rent virtual computers on which to run their own computer applications...
(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 computingCloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....
.
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 TurkThe Amazon Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourcing Internet marketplace that enables computer programmers to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks that computers are unable to do yet. It is one of the suites of Amazon Web Services...
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 contiguous United States in 2005, in Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany in 2007, and in France (as "Amazon Premium") in 2008.
Amazon Prime gives additional benefits beyond shipping. In February 2011, Amazon Prime membership was expanded to include access to instant streaming movies and TV shows at no additional cost. In November 2011 it was announced Prime members have access to the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, which allows users to borrow certain popular titles for free, up to one book a month, with no due date.
As of November 21, 2011 and through December 31, 2011, Prime members can elect for "No Rush" shipping, and receive a $1.00 Amazon MP3 credit in their account for each order that is not shipped via 1- or 2-day delivery.
Amazon Publishing
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.
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
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.
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 TurkThe Amazon Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourcing Internet marketplace that enables computer programmers to co-ordinate the use of human intelligence to perform tasks that computers are unable to do yet. It is one of the suites of Amazon Web Services...
, an
application programming interfaceAn application programming interface is a source code based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other...
(API) allowing programs to dispatch tasks to human processors.
In 2007 Amazon launched
AmapediaAmapedia was a wiki run by the retailer Amazon.com, that existed from January 2007 to June 2010, where users could edit articles about Amazon's products. Anyone with an account on Amazon.com account could edit the contents of Amapedia.- Beginnings :...
, a now-defunct wiki for user-generated content to replace ProductWiki, the
video on demandVideo on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...
service
Amazon UnboxAmazon Instant Video is an Internet video on demand service, only available in the United States, offered by Amazon.com which offers television shows and films for rental and purchase. The service became available on September 7, 2006 as Amazon Unbox...
, and
Amazon MP3Amazon MP3 is an online music store owned and operated by Amazon.com. Launched in public beta on September 25, 2007, in January 2008 it became the first music store to sell music without digital rights management from the four major music labels , as well as many independents...
, which sells downloadable MP3s. Amazon's terms of use agreements restrict use of the MP3s, but Amazon does not use
DRMDigital rights management is a class of access control technologies that are used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, copyright holders and individuals with the intent to limit the use of digital content and devices after sale. DRM is any technology that inhibits uses of digital content that...
to enforce those terms. Amazon MP3 sells music from the Big 4 record labels
EMIThe EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
,
UniversalUniversal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...
,
Warner Bros. RecordsWarner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
, and Sony BMG, as well as independents. Prior to the launch of this service, Amazon made an investment in
Amie StreetAmie Street was an indie online music store and social network service created in 2006 by Brown University seniors Elliott Breece, Elias Roman, and Joshua Boltuch, in Providence, Rhode Island...
, a music store with a variable pricing model based on
demandIn economics, demand is the desire to own anything, the ability to pay for it, and the willingness to pay . The term demand signifies the ability or the willingness to buy a particular commodity at a given point of time....
. Also in 2007 Amazon launched
Amazon VineAmazon Vine is an internal service of Amazon.com. It is a program that allows manufacturers and publishers to create "buzz" via reviews that are published on the Amazon.com site and elsewhere. Companies that use this service pay for access. The precise cost for companies to participate is unknown...
, 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 KindleThe Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
, an
e-bookAn electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
reader which downloads content over "Whispernet", via the
Sprint NextelSprint Nextel Corporation is an American telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 53.4 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility...
EV-DO wireless network. The screen uses
E InkE Ink is a specific proprietary type of electronic paper manufactured by E Ink Corporation, founded in 1997 based on research started at the MIT Media Lab...
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 September 2011, Amazon announced its entry into tablet market by introducing
Kindle FireThe Kindle Fire is a tablet computer version of Amazon.com's Kindle e-book reader. Announced on 28 September 2011, the Kindle Fire has a color 7" multi-touch display with IPS technology and runs a forked version of Google's Android operating system. It includes access to the Amazon Appstore,...
. Kindle Fire is a tablet computer based on customized version of Android operating system. The aggressively cheap pricing of Fire ($199 USD) was largely perceived to be a strategy backed by Amazon's revenue from its content sales, stimulated by sales of Fire.
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
TranscendTranscend Information, Inc. is a Taiwanese company that manufactures and distributes of memory products headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. Transcend's product portfolio consists of over 2,000 devices including memory modules, flash memory cards, USB flash drives, digital audio players, Portable...
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. Amazon 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 which ranges between free to $24.99/month depending on different bundle options for an unlimited number of webstores and listings.
In July 2010 Amazon announced that
e-bookAn electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
sales for its
KindleThe Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
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 ShoreThe Jersey Shore is a term used to refer to both the Atlantic coast of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the adjacent resort and residential communities. . The New Jersey State Department of Tourism considers the Shore Region, Greater Atlantic City, and the Southern Shore to be distinct, each having...
Season 1 or
The UnusualsThe Unusuals is a comedy-drama television series which premiered on ABC on April 8, 2009 in the U.S. and Global in Canada. An ABC press release described The Unusuals as "like a modern-day M*A*S*H" that "explores both the grounded drama and comic insanity of the world of New York City police...
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.
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, amazon.es. 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 scaleA rating scale is a set of categories designed to elicit information about a quantitative or a qualitative attribute. In the social sciences, common examples are the Likert scale and 1-10 rating scales in which a person selects the number which is considered to reflect the perceived quality of a...
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 to them. A problem has been created by Amazon's habit of copying reviews onto pages on other editions of the 'same' book. But often the book is not the 'same' at all. Currently (Nov. 2011) editions of the new translation of the Roman Missal are accompanied on both amazon.com and amazon.co.uk by old reviews of the old translation, many of which advise the purchaser to wait till the new translation appears, and discuss details of content and presentation that have nothing to do with the new edition.
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
eBayeBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
, 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 ServicesAmazon Web Services is a collection of remote computing services that together make up a cloud computing platform, offered over the Internet by Amazon.com...
(AWS)
XMLExtensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
service. A new affiliate product,
aStoreaStore is an Amazon.com affiliate product which website owners can use to create an online store on their site. The program is free and is available world-wide....
, 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 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 on an hourly basis. 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. Amazon, however, has now begun to release point of sales 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 themselves do not release the details of their sales rank calculation algorithm. In addition, they state:
Controversies
Since its founding, the company has attracted criticism and controversy from multiple sources over its actions. These include: investigative reports of "brutal" warehouse conditions for workers
more than 15 workers hospitalized for heat exposure, summary terminations for breast cancer and other health issues, and other allegations; these reports centered on in its warehouses in Breinigsville, PA;
there have also been lesser complaints at its Marston Gate, UK facility in 2001 which resurfaced in 2008 with fresh reports of "
sweatshop conditions" for workers in the UK. Amazon has also been controversial for avoiding and opposing sales tax collection duties; anti-unionization efforts; Amazon Kindle remote content removal; taking public subsidies; its "
1-Click1-Click, also called one-click or one-click buying, is the technique of allowing customers to make online purchases with a single click, with the payment information needed to complete the purchase already entered by the user previously. More particularly, it allows an online shopper using an...
patent" claims; anti-competitive actions;
price discriminationPrice discrimination or price differentiation exists when sales of identical goods or services are transacted at different prices from the same provider...
;various decisions over whether to censor or publish content such as the
WikiLeaksWikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
web site;
LGBTLGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
book sales rank; and works containing libel, facilitating dogfight, cockfight, or pedophile activities.
Sales and use taxes
Amazon collects sales tax from just five 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 taxA use tax is a type of excise tax levied in the United States. It is assessed upon otherwise "tax free" tangible personal property purchased by a resident of the assessing state for use, storage or consumption of goods in that state , regardless of where the purchase took place...
directly to their state, few customers do so.
Amazon says it would support a federal solution to the sales tax problem as long as such legislation was fair and simple. As of May 2011 legislation has been introduced in Congress to allow states to impose sales taxes on sales to their residents from out of state. Amazon has not expressed a public position on the bill. Amazon's competitors say it is insincere. Similar legislation, called the Main Street Fairness Act, failed in committee in 2010. Several earlier versions of the bill also 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 committeeIn the United States, a political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation. Legally, what constitutes a "PAC" for purposes of regulation is a...
spent $214,000 during the 2010 election cycle, double what it spent for the 2008 elections.
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
BankBazaar.com is an online loan marketplace based in Chennai, India. Adhil Shetty, Arjun Shetty and Rati Rajkumar founded BankBazaar.com in 2008 and launched it online in July 2008...
was founded by Arjun Shetty, a former senior product manager at Amazon.com
- CrazyMails.com was founded by Karl Wehner, a former Senior Manager at Amazon.com and Amazon.de
- Evri
Evri is a mobile content discovery engine. It focuses on topic-based news aggregation. It has offices in Seattle and San Francisco. The technology specializes in returning results for breaking news, regularly followed topics, new topic searches, and friends' recommendation...
was led by Neil Roseman, a former VP at Amazon.com
- Findory was founded by Greg Linden
- Flipkart
Flipkart is an Indian online shopping company headquartered in Bangalore, India,which was established in 2007. It is among India’s largest online retail businesses.-History:...
was founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, former Amazon India employees.
- Infibeam
Infibeam.com is an electronic commerce company headquartered in Ahmedabad, India. It is an online retailer for books, electronics, and automobiles in India. Infibeam.com was started in 2007...
was founded by Vishal Mehta, former Amazon employee
- Interviewstreet
Interviewstreet is an IT Startup company started by two alumni of National Institute of Technology, one of the premier institutions in India. Interviewstreet has been started as a platform for conducting mock interviews for students to help them in campus placements. But later their Business Model...
was co-founded by Vivek Ravisankar, former Amazon employee.
- Foodista was founded by Barnaby Dorfman
Barnaby Dorfman is an American businessman. He is the founder and CEO of Foodista. His previous employment includes a role as chief product officer at kyte.tv, and executive positions at Peerflix.com and Amazon's A9.com....
- Hulu
Hulu is a website and over-the-top subscription service offering ad-supported on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, webisodes and other new media, trailers, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage from NBC, Fox, ABC, and Obstacle on October 20th 2011 Nickelodeon and CBS and many other...
is led by Jason KilarJason Kilar is the current CEO of Hulu, a joint venture of ABC, NBC Universal, and NewsCorp. He was previously an Amazon executive. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School....
, a former SVP at Amazon.com
- Jambool
Jambool was an ecommerce company. It operated Social Gold, a virtual goods monetization platform. Social Gold enables developers to create and manage their own white-labeled virtual currency, to provide an in-app payments experience to their users, and analytics to monitor their virtual economy...
/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
Quora is a question-and-answer website created, edited and organized by its community of users. The site was founded in June 2009, launched in private beta in December 2009, and made available to the public on June 21, 2010....
was co-founded by ex-Amazon.com (and FacebookFacebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
) engineer Charlie CheeverCharlie Cheever is the co-founder, along with Adam D'Angelo, of Quora, an online knowledge market. He was formerly an engineer and manager at Facebook, where he oversaw the creation of Facebook Connect and the Facebook Platform. Previous to Facebook Cheever was employed by Amazon.com in Seattle...
- TeachStreet
TeachStreet, Inc. is a web site providing information to students on local and online classes and teachers including pricing information, location, and teacher background and training. It also provides online business management tools for teachers and schools...
was founded by Dave Schappell, an early Amazon.com product manager
- The Book Depository
The Book Depository is a UK-based online book seller. The company is notable for its worldwide free shipping* to over 90 countries.On 4th July 2011, Amazon reached an agreement to acquire The Book Depository-History:...
was founded by Andrew CrawfordAndrew Crawford is an Irish Entrepreneur and the former CEO & Founder of The Book Depository. He was born in Zambia, of Irish Heritage. Crawford, an Old Gregorian was educated at Downside School and then The University of Liverpool studying Engineering Science and Industrial Management...
, former Bookpages and Amazon.co.uk employee. Acquired by Amazon in 2011.
- TrackSimple was founded by Jon Ingalls and Ajit Banerjee
- Trusera
Trusera was a Seattle-based social networking startup founded in 2007 by Keith Schorsch, a former Amazon.com executive. Schorsch's struggle with Lyme disease in 2004 inspired him to create Trusera, a place where users can access information from people who have had similar medical experiences...
was founded by Keith Schorsch, an early Amazonian
- Twilio
Twilio is a cloud communications IaaS company based in San Francisco, California. Twilio allows software developers to programmatically make and receive phone calls and send and receive text messages using its web service APIs...
was founded by Jeff LawsonJeff Lawson may refer to:* Jeff Lawson, meteorologist at WTTG from 1984–1989, now at WVEC in Norfolk, Virginia* Jeff Lawson, co-founder of distributed.net* Jeff Lawson , English MMA fighter and The Ultimate Fighter 9 cast member...
, Technical Product Manager at Amazon
- Vittana
Vittana is a non-governmental organization that allows people to lend money via the Internet to students in the developing world. It is a 501 non-profit organization headquartered in Seattle. Vittana focuses on student loans because student loans are nearly unavailable in developing...
was founded by Kushal Chakrabarti, a tech lead at Amazon, and Brett Witt with financial backing from a number of early Amazon VPs
- Pelago
Whrrl is a social location-based game developed by the Seattle-based company Pelago, Inc.Whrrl has a recommendation engine that uses algorithms and users' votes to surface relevant recommendations...
was co-founded by Jeff Holden, a former SVP at Amazon.com and Darren Vengroff, a former Principal Engineer
- Wikinvest
Wikinvest is an investment portal that uses the wiki format. It was founded in 2006 by Michael Sha, former Amazon.com employee and has been open to the public since June 2007. The website was a winner in the 2008 SXSW Interactive Web Awards....
was founded by Michael Sha
- Yellowleg.com
Yellowleg.com is an Indian electronic commerce company headquartered in Bangalore, India. It is an online bookstore that specializes in offering a curated selection of travel books. Yellowleg.com also lets users return the books they buy for in-store credit....
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
The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is a contest sponsored by Amazon.com, Penguin Group, Hewlett Packard, CreateSpace and BookSurge to publish and promote a manuscript by an unknown or unpublished author...
- Amazon Standard Identification Number
The Amazon Standard Identification Number is a unique identification number assigned by Amazon.com and its partners for product identification within the Amazon.com organization. Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, Amazon.co.jp, Amazon.cn, and Amazon.es also use ASINs.ASINs...
(ASIN)
- Statistically Improbable Phrases
Statistically Improbable Phrases, Statimprophrases or SIPs constitute a system developed by Amazon.com to compare all of the books they index in the Search Inside! program and find phrases in each that are the most unlikely to be found in any other book indexed...
: amazon.com's phrase extraction technique for indexing books.
External links