By Andy Goldberg Jul 9, 2005, 10:52 GMT
Moby from the USA performs on stage of the Rockwave Festival in Athens, Sunday 26 June 2005. EPA/ORESTIS PANAGIOTOU
Seattle - Stars such as Harrison Ford, Moby, Jason Alexander, Bob Dylan and Norah Jones have been lined up to mark the 10 anniversary of Internet retailer Amazon.com.
The idea is for Ford to show up on the doorstep of an Amazon shopper and hand over a copy of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", while Moby may deliver his recently released CD "Hotel". Dylan and Jones will perform at the climax of the celebrations, a concert that will be broadcast live on the company's website on July 16, exactly ten years after the site went live.
Back then, at the dawn of the Internet, few except company founder Jeff Bezos foresaw a time when customers would spend billions of dollars a day buying goods on the Internet.
But as early as 1994, the young business graduate from Princeton had become convinced that the Internet would change the world. He packed all his belongings into his father's car and drove from Fort Worth, Texas to Seattle, Washington to found his first company, an online bookstore, Amazon, in the basement of his rented house.
Just over a year later, the site went live and Amazon.com made its first sale: "Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought." From the start, Bezos knew he wanted to sell much more than books. He used books merely as a test product for his bigger ideas of Internet retail - low prices, fast delivery, huge inventory, and a great customer experience.
In those heady early days of the web, investors loved the vision.
In 1997, the stock went public, raising some 57 million dollars for the company. But from day one the price rocketed, often rising more than 30 per cent a month. As Amazon became the first ever website to register one million customers, investors paid a premium in the dot-com boom days for a company that actually was selling products, even if it was recording huge losses.
In 1998, Amazon added music, videos and DVDs to its product line and launched its first international sites in the United Kingdom and Germany.
The next year it added auctions, electronics, toys, software, home improvement and video games. Amazon expertise in online retailing also allowed it to pioneer deals with "bricks and mortar" retailers such as Toys 'R Us to manage their online operations. Bezos was also named Time magazine's "Person of the Year."
By the next year however the dot com crash sent all the overpriced Internet stocks plummeting. Amazon was still not profitable and it was forced to make its first layoffs to stem its losses.
But by 2003 it had started turning a profit, and had consolidated its position as the world's dominant online retailer. Now it boasts 49 million customers, over 800,000 merchants who use the Amazon storefront to sell their wares, an inventory it says is the world's biggest retail selection and revenue of 6.9 billion dollars - more than double its closest online competitor, computer company Dell.
But it is still far from being a darling of investors. The company's stock price has plummeted by about half in the last year alone and is now about 30 dollars a share.
Bezos dismisses Wall Street's criticism by arguing that a jump from 1.50 dollars to 30 dollars in eight years is "unusually good performance, under any circumstances". He also blasts Wall Street for insisting the company raise prices and do away with margin-eating offers like the free shipping it offers to all customers.
Some investors and analysts are also worried that Amazon's growth may stutter as companies like Google, EBay and Yahoo encroach on its turf.
But Bezos' relentless focus on exceeding customer's expectations have made the company one of the most trusted brands in America - online or off. Amazon ranked No. 2 on a recent Forbes list of the 20 brands from which customers were most likely to accept new offerings outside of the company's existing categories. This gives Amazon opportunities well beyond its traditional retail boundaries - health car insurance or vacations for example.
"Amazon is here to stay," said online retail analyst Tim Spears. "Ten years ago it pioneered the art of retailing physical goods over the Internet. It's still well ahead of the field."
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