Placing Your First Order
Placing an order with Amazon.com is easy. There's no need to create an account first. You automatically create an account when you place your first order online. (We cannot accept orders by phone, fax, or e-mail. All orders must be placed online.)
Here are the steps you need to follow to place an order. If you have any problems when following these steps, please read our Troubleshooting Tips.
1. Find the Items You Want
First you will need to browse or search for the items you would like to order. Keyword search boxes are located on nearly every page of our store. You will also find links to browse lists and more detailed product-specific searches in the top navigation bar of each store. When you find an item that interests you, click the title or name of the item to see its product detail page. Here you will find more information about the item, including an availability estimate of how long it will take before the item will be ready to leave our fulfillment center.
If you don't find what you're looking for in one of our Amazon.com stores, you may want to visit one of our international websites, including Amazon.co.jp, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.fr, Amazon.de, and Amazon.at.
2. Add the Items to Your Shopping Cart
If you want to order an item from Amazon.com, click the "Add to Shopping Cart" button on the item's product detail page. (If you want to buy the product from another seller, click the link in the More Buying Choices box instead and follow the directions.) Once you've added an item to your Shopping Cart, keep searching or browsing until your cart contains all of the items you want to order. You can access the contents of your Shopping Cart at any time by clicking the at the top of every page of our website.
3. Proceed to Checkout
Take a moment to review all of the items you've placed in your Shopping Cart. If you decide that you don't want to purchase a particular item right away, click the "save for later" button next to the title. The item will move from your current Shopping Cart to the "Saved Items--To Buy Later" list below. If any of the items are to be gifts, click the "add gift-wrap/note" checkbox under the item. (You'll be given a chance to order gift-wrap and/or add a note during the checkout process.)
When you're ready to place an order for everything in the "Shopping Cart Items--To Buy Now" section of your cart, click the "Proceed to checkout" button. You will be taken to the first page of the order form.
The instructions below outline each step of our online order form. If at any point you encounter difficulty or receive an error message, please consult our troubleshooting tips.
4. Sign In
Enter your e-mail address. (Keep in mind that the e-mail address you provide here will be the only e-mail address to which we can send information about subsequent orders.) Indicate that you are a new customer. (Do not fill in the password field; you will be asked to provide a password for your account later in the process.) Click the "Sign in" button.
5. Enter a Shipping Address
Tell us where you would like to ship your order. If you are shipping to an APO or FPO address, click here for further instructions. If you are shipping to a post office box, please enter the words "PO BOX" before your box number to ensure that the order is delivered by the U.S. Postal Service.
6. Choose a Shipping Method
Consider how quickly you would like to receive your order, and choose a shipping method. If you would like to take advantage of FREE Super Saver Shipping and your order qualifies, be sure to select it as your shipping option; you will not receive free shipping automatically. Please note that it's not possible to request a specific carrier.
We will estimate shipment dates for you on the order form, just before you submit your order. You will see estimated shipment and delivery dates in the e-mail we send you to confirm your order.
If there is more than one item in your order, you will be given the following options:
Group my items into as few shipments as possible
I want my items faster. Ship them as soon as they become available (at additional cost)
If you choose the first option, we'll consolidate your items into the fewest shipments possible. We'll show you the minimum number of shipments needed to complete your order. If you choose the second option, we will ship items to you as they become available, beginning with those already in stock. You'll be charged a per-shipment fee for each shipment. Read more about shipping preferences, and find domestic shipping rates or international shipping rates.
Also, please note that the availability listings on our website are intended for single-copy orders. Orders for many copies of the same item may take longer to assemble.
The shipping charge for your order will be displayed on the order summary page just before you submit your order.
7. Provide Payment Information and a Password
Next, let us know how you would like to pay for your order. We accept American Express, Diners Club, Discover, JCB, MasterCard, Eurocard, MasterMoney, Visa, Visa Check Cards, Amazon.com gift certificates, or a check, money order, or cashier's check denominated in U.S. dollars and drawn on a U.S. bank. All orders must be prepaid. If you're paying with a credit card, enter the number without spaces or dashes.
Choose a password for your account so that when you come back to Amazon.com in the future, you can use the same shipping address and method of payment you provided during this first order. You will also be able to use your password to make changes to your order and account information. Make sure to choose something you will remember the next time you want to place an order. Passwords should be 4 to 16 characters long and can contain any combination of letters or numbers.
8. Review and Submit Your Order
Check the accuracy all of the information you provided and make any necessary adjustments. When you are ready, click the "Place Your Order" button to submit your order. Once you place your order, we will send you a confirmation e-mail message. We will send you another e-mail message at the time of shipment. 1-Click shopping is automatically turned on for you so that it's even easier to order in the future.
9. Check Your Order Status
If you would like to review or change something about the order you placed before it enters the shipping process, click the Your Account link in the top right corner of most pages on our site. Here you will be able to change the particulars of your order without having to contact us.
Note: Some items offered on our website are fulfilled by Amazon Merchants or through Amazon Marketplace. Payment, shipping, and return policies may vary by type of order and by seller. The seller of each item in your order will be clearly noted on the View Shopping Cart page.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Friday, June 27, 2008
Amazon.com : International Shipping
Amazon.com gladly accepts orders from all around the globe. Available product lines, shipping rates and fees may vary depending on the delivery address for your order.
To see the shipping rate information specific to your order's destination, click the link for your region at the bottom of this page under the heading "Related Topics."
Items from Amazon Marketplace can be shipped to several international regions, but cannot be shipped to Africa, Island Nations, Israel, Latin America, or the Middle East. Read more about Amazon Marketplace shipping rates.
Some items sold by Amazon Merchants may be shipped internationally. In addition, some items sold by Merchants are available via the International Direct program. Amazon Merchants set their own shipping rates and policies.
Read more about shipping to U.S. protectorates or APO/FPO addresses.
Your packages may be subject to the customs fees and import duties of the country to which you have your order shipped. These charges are always the recipient's responsibility. For further details, read about Restrictions (which apply to all international shipments) and Import Fees Deposits (which apply to Priority International Shipping only).
Restrictions
The following items can be shipped to almost all destinations outside the U.S.:
books*
DVDs
music
VHS videos
Additionally, some consumer electronics, health and personal care, home and garden, jewelry, pet supplies, shoes, software, sporting goods, tools, video games, and watches can be shipped to the following countries:
Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom
Visit our International Direct store to browse products that are available for shipping to these destinations.
All products shipped to these countries via Priority International Shipping are included in the International Direct program and subject to an import fees deposit. We use this ship method for all non-media products; customers can also choose this method for books, DVDs, music and VHS videos. For further details about this service, read about the International Direct program.
We're sorry, but Priority International Shipping is not available for P.O. Box addresses.
*Note: Books that require special handling because they are extremely heavy (for example, multi-volume sets) cannot be shipped outside the U.S. If this is the case, it will be noted on the product detail page.
Limitations
For products shipped internationally, please note that any manufacturer warranty may not be valid; manufacturer service options may not be available; product manuals, instructions and safety warnings may not be in destination country languages; the products (and accompanying materials) may not be designed in accordance with destination country standards, specifications, and labeling requirements; and the products may not conform to destination country voltage and other electrical standards (requiring use of an adapter or converter if appropriate). You are responsible for assuring that the product can be lawfully imported to the destination country. When ordering from Amazon.com, the recipient is the importer of record and must comply with all laws and regulations of the destination country.
Privacy
Your privacy is important to us, and we know that you care about how information about your order is used and shared. We would like our international customers and customers shipping products internationally to be aware that cross-border shipments are subject to opening and inspection by customs authorities.
Also, we may provide certain order, shipment, and product information, such as titles, to our international carriers, and such information may be communicated by the carriers to customs authorities in order to facilitate customs clearance and comply with local laws.
If the order is a gift, the package is marked "Gift," but the cost of the item is still stated on the customs form.
Customs authorities require the value of the gift item to be stated directly on the package.
Returns & Replacements
The above terms (including, if applicable, terms related to the Import Fee Deposit) also apply to the shipment of any replacement product that might be shipped if there is a problem with the original shipment. If you return a product to us, you will be the exporter from the destination country. Title and risk of loss transfer to us upon receipt at our fulfillment centers. For additional information please use the "Contact Us" form accessible on the right-side of this page. For products sold by Merchants, please see the applicable Merchant's return and replacement policies.
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=596184]
To see the shipping rate information specific to your order's destination, click the link for your region at the bottom of this page under the heading "Related Topics."
Items from Amazon Marketplace can be shipped to several international regions, but cannot be shipped to Africa, Island Nations, Israel, Latin America, or the Middle East. Read more about Amazon Marketplace shipping rates.
Some items sold by Amazon Merchants may be shipped internationally. In addition, some items sold by Merchants are available via the International Direct program. Amazon Merchants set their own shipping rates and policies.
Read more about shipping to U.S. protectorates or APO/FPO addresses.
Your packages may be subject to the customs fees and import duties of the country to which you have your order shipped. These charges are always the recipient's responsibility. For further details, read about Restrictions (which apply to all international shipments) and Import Fees Deposits (which apply to Priority International Shipping only).
Restrictions
The following items can be shipped to almost all destinations outside the U.S.:
books*
DVDs
music
VHS videos
Additionally, some consumer electronics, health and personal care, home and garden, jewelry, pet supplies, shoes, software, sporting goods, tools, video games, and watches can be shipped to the following countries:
Australia, Austria, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom
Visit our International Direct store to browse products that are available for shipping to these destinations.
All products shipped to these countries via Priority International Shipping are included in the International Direct program and subject to an import fees deposit. We use this ship method for all non-media products; customers can also choose this method for books, DVDs, music and VHS videos. For further details about this service, read about the International Direct program.
We're sorry, but Priority International Shipping is not available for P.O. Box addresses.
*Note: Books that require special handling because they are extremely heavy (for example, multi-volume sets) cannot be shipped outside the U.S. If this is the case, it will be noted on the product detail page.
Limitations
For products shipped internationally, please note that any manufacturer warranty may not be valid; manufacturer service options may not be available; product manuals, instructions and safety warnings may not be in destination country languages; the products (and accompanying materials) may not be designed in accordance with destination country standards, specifications, and labeling requirements; and the products may not conform to destination country voltage and other electrical standards (requiring use of an adapter or converter if appropriate). You are responsible for assuring that the product can be lawfully imported to the destination country. When ordering from Amazon.com, the recipient is the importer of record and must comply with all laws and regulations of the destination country.
Privacy
Your privacy is important to us, and we know that you care about how information about your order is used and shared. We would like our international customers and customers shipping products internationally to be aware that cross-border shipments are subject to opening and inspection by customs authorities.
Also, we may provide certain order, shipment, and product information, such as titles, to our international carriers, and such information may be communicated by the carriers to customs authorities in order to facilitate customs clearance and comply with local laws.
If the order is a gift, the package is marked "Gift," but the cost of the item is still stated on the customs form.
Customs authorities require the value of the gift item to be stated directly on the package.
Returns & Replacements
The above terms (including, if applicable, terms related to the Import Fee Deposit) also apply to the shipment of any replacement product that might be shipped if there is a problem with the original shipment. If you return a product to us, you will be the exporter from the destination country. Title and risk of loss transfer to us upon receipt at our fulfillment centers. For additional information please use the "Contact Us" form accessible on the right-side of this page. For products sold by Merchants, please see the applicable Merchant's return and replacement policies.
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=596184]
Amazon.com : Products and services
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Amazon.com has incorporated a number of products and services into its shopping model, either through development or acquisition.
2001
Honor System and donations
The Honor System was originally launched in 2001 to allow customers to make donations or buy digital content, with Amazon collecting 2.9 percent of the payment plus a flat fee of $0.30 USD.
2002
Web Services
Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002. The service provides programmatic access to many features leveraged behind the scenes on its website.
2004
Amazon also created "channels" to benefit certain causes. In 2004, Amazon's "Presidential Candidates" allowed customers to donate US$5-200 to the campaigns of 2004 U.S. presidential hopefuls. Amazon has periodically reactivated a Red Cross donation channel after such tragedies as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. After the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean, Amazon set up an online donation channel to the American Red Cross, waiving its processing fee. As of January 2005, over 162,000 individuals had donated over US$13.1 million.[citation needed] Similar channels were set up for the British, Canadian, French, German and Japanese Red Cross organizations. Over 7,000 Britons donated more than US$350,000; 900 Canadians over US$56,000; 660 French over US$23,000; 2,900 Germans over US$145,000; and 1,900 Japanese over US$66,000.[citation needed]
2005
Prime
Amazon Prime offers customers free 2-day and discounted priority shipping for a yearly fee of US$ 79. Amazon launched the program in the continental United States in 2005, Japan in June 2007 and the United Kingdom and Germany in November 2007.
Shorts
Launched in 2005, Amazon Shorts offers exclusive short form content, including short stories and non-fiction pieces from best-selling authors, all available for immediate download at US$.49. As of June 2007, the program has over 1,700 pieces and is adding about 50 new pieces per week.
Mechanical Turk
In November 2005, Amazon.com began testing Amazon Mechanical Turk, an application programming interface (API) allowing programs to dispatch tasks to human processors.
2006
S3
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 gigabytes in size, can be stored in S3 and distributed via HTTP or BitTorrent. The service charges monthly fees for data stored and for data transferred.
Discussion boards
In August 2006, Amazon launched product wikis (later folded into Amapedia) and discussion forums for certain products using guidelines that follow standard message board conventions.
EC2
In August 2006, Amazon introduced Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a virtual site farm, allowing users to use the Amazon infrastructure with its high reliability to run diverse applications ranging from running simulations to web hosting.
2007
Amapedia
In January 2007 Amazon launched Amapedia, a collaborative wiki for user-generated content to replace ProductWiki.
Unbox
In March 2007, Amazon launched an online video on demand service, which has been criticized for its use of digital rights management (DRM).[citation needed]
MP3 downloads
In September 2007, Amazon launched a new music store (currently in beta) called Amazon MP3, which sells downloadable tracks, all in the MP3 format and most recorded at 256 kilobits per second variable bitrate (VBR).[28] Amazon's terms of use agreements legally restrict use of the music, but Amazon does not use DRM to enforce those terms.[29]
Amazon MP3 is selling music from the Big 4 record labels, EMI, Universal, Warner Bros. Records, and Sony BMG, as well as many independents; as of January 2008 they are the only store to sell DRM-free music from all Big 4 labels.[30][31][32][33] Previous to the launch of this service, Amazon made an investment in Amie Street, a similar music store with a variable pricing model based on demand.[34]
Vine
In August 2007 Amazon launched Amazon Vine, which allows top product reviewers free access to pre-release products from vendors participating in the program.
FPS
In August 2007 Amazon launched a payment service specifically targeted at developers. Amazon FPS has facilities for developing many different charging models including micro-payments. The service also gives developers easy access to Amazon customers.
Kindle
In November 2007, Amazon launched Amazon Kindle, an e-book reader which downloads content over "Whispernet," a free EV-DO wireless service on the Sprint Nextel network. Initial offerings include approximately 115,000 books, newspapers, magazines and blogs.[citation needed] The screen uses E Ink technology to reduce battery consumption.
SimpleDB
In December 2007, Amazon introduced SimpleDB, a database system, allowing users of its other infrastructure to utilize a high reliability high performance database system.
2008
Amazon MP3
In January 2008 Amazon announced they would be rolling out their Amazon MP3 service to their subsidiary websites worldwide throughout the year.[35]
Connect
Amazon Connect enables authors to post remarks on their book pages and to customers who have bought their books.
WebStore
WebStore by Amazon allows businesses to create e-commerce websites using Amazon technology. Merchants can customize their sites using their own photos and branding. Sellers pay a commission of 7 percent, which includes credit-card processing fees and fraud protection, and a subscription fee of $59.95/month for an unlimited number of webstores and listings.
Amazon.com has incorporated a number of products and services into its shopping model, either through development or acquisition.
2001
Honor System and donations
The Honor System was originally launched in 2001 to allow customers to make donations or buy digital content, with Amazon collecting 2.9 percent of the payment plus a flat fee of $0.30 USD.
2002
Web Services
Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS) in 2002. The service provides programmatic access to many features leveraged behind the scenes on its website.
2004
Amazon also created "channels" to benefit certain causes. In 2004, Amazon's "Presidential Candidates" allowed customers to donate US$5-200 to the campaigns of 2004 U.S. presidential hopefuls. Amazon has periodically reactivated a Red Cross donation channel after such tragedies as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. After the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean, Amazon set up an online donation channel to the American Red Cross, waiving its processing fee. As of January 2005, over 162,000 individuals had donated over US$13.1 million.[citation needed] Similar channels were set up for the British, Canadian, French, German and Japanese Red Cross organizations. Over 7,000 Britons donated more than US$350,000; 900 Canadians over US$56,000; 660 French over US$23,000; 2,900 Germans over US$145,000; and 1,900 Japanese over US$66,000.[citation needed]
2005
Prime
Amazon Prime offers customers free 2-day and discounted priority shipping for a yearly fee of US$ 79. Amazon launched the program in the continental United States in 2005, Japan in June 2007 and the United Kingdom and Germany in November 2007.
Shorts
Launched in 2005, Amazon Shorts offers exclusive short form content, including short stories and non-fiction pieces from best-selling authors, all available for immediate download at US$.49. As of June 2007, the program has over 1,700 pieces and is adding about 50 new pieces per week.
Mechanical Turk
In November 2005, Amazon.com began testing Amazon Mechanical Turk, an application programming interface (API) allowing programs to dispatch tasks to human processors.
2006
S3
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 gigabytes in size, can be stored in S3 and distributed via HTTP or BitTorrent. The service charges monthly fees for data stored and for data transferred.
Discussion boards
In August 2006, Amazon launched product wikis (later folded into Amapedia) and discussion forums for certain products using guidelines that follow standard message board conventions.
EC2
In August 2006, Amazon introduced Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a virtual site farm, allowing users to use the Amazon infrastructure with its high reliability to run diverse applications ranging from running simulations to web hosting.
2007
Amapedia
In January 2007 Amazon launched Amapedia, a collaborative wiki for user-generated content to replace ProductWiki.
Unbox
In March 2007, Amazon launched an online video on demand service, which has been criticized for its use of digital rights management (DRM).[citation needed]
MP3 downloads
In September 2007, Amazon launched a new music store (currently in beta) called Amazon MP3, which sells downloadable tracks, all in the MP3 format and most recorded at 256 kilobits per second variable bitrate (VBR).[28] Amazon's terms of use agreements legally restrict use of the music, but Amazon does not use DRM to enforce those terms.[29]
Amazon MP3 is selling music from the Big 4 record labels, EMI, Universal, Warner Bros. Records, and Sony BMG, as well as many independents; as of January 2008 they are the only store to sell DRM-free music from all Big 4 labels.[30][31][32][33] Previous to the launch of this service, Amazon made an investment in Amie Street, a similar music store with a variable pricing model based on demand.[34]
Vine
In August 2007 Amazon launched Amazon Vine, which allows top product reviewers free access to pre-release products from vendors participating in the program.
FPS
In August 2007 Amazon launched a payment service specifically targeted at developers. Amazon FPS has facilities for developing many different charging models including micro-payments. The service also gives developers easy access to Amazon customers.
Kindle
In November 2007, Amazon launched Amazon Kindle, an e-book reader which downloads content over "Whispernet," a free EV-DO wireless service on the Sprint Nextel network. Initial offerings include approximately 115,000 books, newspapers, magazines and blogs.[citation needed] The screen uses E Ink technology to reduce battery consumption.
SimpleDB
In December 2007, Amazon introduced SimpleDB, a database system, allowing users of its other infrastructure to utilize a high reliability high performance database system.
2008
Amazon MP3
In January 2008 Amazon announced they would be rolling out their Amazon MP3 service to their subsidiary websites worldwide throughout the year.[35]
Connect
Amazon Connect enables authors to post remarks on their book pages and to customers who have bought their books.
WebStore
WebStore by Amazon allows businesses to create e-commerce websites using Amazon technology. Merchants can customize their sites using their own photos and branding. Sellers pay a commission of 7 percent, which includes credit-card processing fees and fraud protection, and a subscription fee of $59.95/month for an unlimited number of webstores and listings.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Do you know current business of Amazon.com ?
Amazon.com
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is an American electronic commerce (e-commerce) company in Seattle, Washington. Amazon was one of the first major companies to sell goods by Internet, and was an iconic "stock in which to invest" of the late 1990s dot-com bubble. After the collapse, the public became skeptical about Amazon's business model, yet, it still turned an annual profit in 2003.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994, and launched it online in 1995. Amazon.com started as an on-line bookstore, but soon diversified to product lines of VHS, DVD, music CDs, MP3 format, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, etc. Amazon has established separate websites in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, China, and Japan. It also provides global shipping to certain countries for some of its products.
Product lines
Amazon has steadily branched into retail sales of 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, groceries, and more.
The company launched Amazon.com Auctions, its own Web auctions service, in March 1999. However it failed to chip away at industry pioneer eBay's juggernaut growth. Amazon Auctions was followed by the launch of a fixed-price marketplace business called zShops in September 1999, and a failed Sotheby's/Amazon partnership called sothebys.amazon.com in November.
Amazon no longer mentions either Auctions or zShops on its main pages and the help page for sellers now only mentions the Marketplace.[8] Old links to zShop ([1]) now simply redirect to the Amazon home page, while old links to Auctions ([2]) take users to a transactions history page. New product listings are no longer possible for either service.
Although zShops failed to live up to its expectations, it laid the groundwork for the hugely successful Amazon Marketplace service launched in 2001 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.
Beginning August 2005,[9] Amazon began selling products under its own private label, "Pinzon"; the initial trademark applications suggested the company intended to focus on textiles, kitchen utensils, and other household goods.[9] In March 2007, the company applied to expand the trademark to cover a larger and 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.".[10] The list of products registered for coverage by the trademark grew to include items such as paints, carpets, wallpaper, hair accessories, clothing, footwear, headgear, cleaning products, and jewelry.[10]
On May 16, 2007 Amazon announced its intention to launch its own online music store.[11] The store launched in public beta September 25, 2007, selling downloads exclusively in MP3 format without digital rights management.[12].
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.[13] AmazonFresh also operated pick-up locations in the suburbs of Bellevue and Kirkland from summer 2007 through early 2008.
In 2008 Amazon expanded into film production and is currently funding the film The Stolen Child with 20th Century Fox.[14]
[edit] Review and Recommendation Feature
Amazon.com is known for its candid reviews and its capabilities for recommending products to its customers. The customer reviews are monitored for all negative or indecent comments that are directed at anything, or anyone, but the product itself. In regards to the reviews lacking relative restrictions, Robert Spector who is the author of the book Amazon.com, describes how “when publishers and authors asked Bezos why Amazon.com 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’” (Spector 132).
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is an American electronic commerce (e-commerce) company in Seattle, Washington. Amazon was one of the first major companies to sell goods by Internet, and was an iconic "stock in which to invest" of the late 1990s dot-com bubble. After the collapse, the public became skeptical about Amazon's business model, yet, it still turned an annual profit in 2003.
Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994, and launched it online in 1995. Amazon.com started as an on-line bookstore, but soon diversified to product lines of VHS, DVD, music CDs, MP3 format, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, etc. Amazon has established separate websites in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, China, and Japan. It also provides global shipping to certain countries for some of its products.
Product lines
Amazon has steadily branched into retail sales of 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, groceries, and more.
The company launched Amazon.com Auctions, its own Web auctions service, in March 1999. However it failed to chip away at industry pioneer eBay's juggernaut growth. Amazon Auctions was followed by the launch of a fixed-price marketplace business called zShops in September 1999, and a failed Sotheby's/Amazon partnership called sothebys.amazon.com in November.
Amazon no longer mentions either Auctions or zShops on its main pages and the help page for sellers now only mentions the Marketplace.[8] Old links to zShop ([1]) now simply redirect to the Amazon home page, while old links to Auctions ([2]) take users to a transactions history page. New product listings are no longer possible for either service.
Although zShops failed to live up to its expectations, it laid the groundwork for the hugely successful Amazon Marketplace service launched in 2001 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.
Beginning August 2005,[9] Amazon began selling products under its own private label, "Pinzon"; the initial trademark applications suggested the company intended to focus on textiles, kitchen utensils, and other household goods.[9] In March 2007, the company applied to expand the trademark to cover a larger and 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.".[10] The list of products registered for coverage by the trademark grew to include items such as paints, carpets, wallpaper, hair accessories, clothing, footwear, headgear, cleaning products, and jewelry.[10]
On May 16, 2007 Amazon announced its intention to launch its own online music store.[11] The store launched in public beta September 25, 2007, selling downloads exclusively in MP3 format without digital rights management.[12].
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.[13] AmazonFresh also operated pick-up locations in the suburbs of Bellevue and Kirkland from summer 2007 through early 2008.
In 2008 Amazon expanded into film production and is currently funding the film The Stolen Child with 20th Century Fox.[14]
[edit] Review and Recommendation Feature
Amazon.com is known for its candid reviews and its capabilities for recommending products to its customers. The customer reviews are monitored for all negative or indecent comments that are directed at anything, or anyone, but the product itself. In regards to the reviews lacking relative restrictions, Robert Spector who is the author of the book Amazon.com, describes how “when publishers and authors asked Bezos why Amazon.com 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’” (Spector 132).
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