Amazon.com Nears 10-Year Anniversary

mopslik writes "Amazon.com is nearing its 10-year anniversary. "Soon after Amazon.com Inc. debuted 10 years ago, Jeff Bezos and his handful of employees spent late summer nights packing books in a tiny warehouse, scrambling to ship a growing gush of orders. Today, the man who has grown accustomed to being hailed the king of Internet commerce runs a global powerhouse that did nearly $7 billion in sales last year, dealing in everything from banjo cases to wild boar baby back ribs." Although Bezos has drawn some ire from his collection of patents, there's no arguing that his company is one of the most successful online sites today."

Re:Secret of Success?

[Deinhard]

I'll second that. I was thinking about my history with ecommerce a few days ago and looked up my old Amazon orders. My first order was Spear of Mars [amazon.com] a short story compilation. That was on April 4, 1997. Since it was out of print, it wasn't shipped until Sept. 6, 1998. Amazon's system kept looking until it found a copy.

I've always been impressed with Amazon's experience. In fact, I'm considering an experiment this year to see if I can purchase all of my Christmas gifts just from Amazon.

How successful?

[syphax]

A quick glance [yahoo.com] shows that Amazon may actually achieve a level of zero net tangible assets (they've been in the red for years) this year. Similarly, another glance [yahoo.com] shows that 2004 was the first year Amazon actually made a real profit (2003 was about breakeven).

I am impressed, though, that Amazon actually hung in there through years and years of losses and now actually has a profitable, reasonably sustainable business.

I, too, prefer the book information from B&N..

[HWheel]

...although I enjoy reading the "user comments" on Amazon.

Many times, however, I find Amazon an easier process to purchase books except when a book is out of print or from a private seller, I can order it more easily from B&N when I order a couple of other books.

I think the B&N search for a title or author usually does a better job than Amazon - less junk. I'm not enamored with the "search inside" or "related" garbage. I usually pretty much know what I want.

Oh - and in NYC - I can get free overnight delivery from B&N.

Re:Amazon versus Yahoo board posters

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to read the Yahoo investment message board for Amazon, and I remember all those posters who were absolutely sure Amazon was going down.

If they were talking about stock price, then they were ultimately right. AMZN went from a high of 113.00 in Dec 1999 to a low of 5.51 in Oct 2001.

Even so, the only time it would not have been a good long term investment was around 1998-2000. Amazon has turned out to be a pretty sound business.

5 easy steps

[drewness]

1. Go to amazon.co.uk
2. Click on the "Your account" button
3. Follow the link called "Update your communication preferences"
4. Sign in
5. Change your preferences. They're all pretty straight forward. There's even one called "Don't send me any messages that aren't related to my orders, bids or services that I sign up for directly."

"10th", not "10-year"

[beanyk]

I know I'm just pissing in the wind about this, but "10-year anniversary" is as bad as "PIN number" and "ATM machine". The correct term is "10th anniversary".

I blame people who want to celebrate three-month relationships with an "anniversary", in defiance of the fact that three months isn't really that long, and probably doesn't merit a Hallmark card.

Rant over.