The online versions of newspapers brought a wealth of information. The web provided readers not only with news available online, but also with a whole encyclopedia to help understand them. The reader could click on hyperlinks to get maps, biographies, official texts, political and economic data, photographs, as well as the first attempts in audio and video coverage. The reader could also easily access other articles on the same topic, with search engines sorting out articles by date, author, title or subject.
1995 > AMAZON, A PIONEER IN CYBERCOMMERCE
[Summary] Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com in July 1995 in Seattle, on the West Coast, after a market study which led him to conclude that books were the best products to sell on the internet. The online bookstore started with 10 employees and a catalog of 3 million books. Unlike traditional bookstores, Amazon's windows were its webpages, with transactions made through the internet. Books were stored in huge storage facilities before being put into boxes and sent by mail. In November 2000, Amazon had 7,500 employees, a catalog of 28 million items, 23 million clients worldwide and four subsidiaries in United Kingdom (launched in August 1998), Germany (August 1998), France (August 2000), and Japan (November 2000). A fifth subsidiary opened in Canada in June 2002. A sixth subsidiary, named Joyo, opened in China in September 2004. In July 2005, for its 10th anniversary, Amazon had 41 million clients and 9,000 employees.
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Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com in July 1995 in Seattle, on the West Coast, after a market study which led him to conclude that books were the best products to sell on the internet.
The online bookstore started with 10 employees and a catalog of 3 million books, i.e. the catalog of books available for sale in the U.S. Unlike traditional bookstores, Amazon’s windows were its webpages, with transactions made through the internet. Books were stored in huge storage facilities before being put into boxes and sent by mail.
What exactly was the idea behind Amazon.com? In spring 1994, Jeff Bezos drew up a list of twenty products that could be sold online, ranging from clothing to gardening tools, and then researched the top five, which were CDs, videos, computer hardware, computer software and books.
As recalled by Jeff Bezos in 1997 in Amazon's press kit: "I used a whole bunch of criteria to evaluate the potential of each product, but among the main criteria was the size of the relative markets. Books, I found out, were an $82 billion market worldwide. The price point was another major criterion: I wanted a low-priced product. I reasoned that since this was the first purchase many people would make online, it had to be non-threatening in size. A third criterion was the range of choice: there were 3 million items in the book category and only a tenth of that in CDs, for example. This was important because the wider the choice, the more the organizing and selection capabilities of the computer could be put in good use."
In the wake of the Internet Bookstore in United Kingdom, that was the largest online bookstore in Europe, Amazon.com launched is own Associates Program in spring 1997. There were 30,000 associates in spring 1998, and 60,000 associates in June 1998.
As stated in a press release dated 8 June 1998 to promote the program: "The Amazon.com Associates Program allows website owners to easily participate in hassle-free electronic commerce by recommending books on their site and referring visitors to Amazon.com. In return, participants earn referral fees of up to 15 percent of the sales they generate. Amazon.com handles the secure online ordering, customer service, and shipping and sends weekly email sales reports. Enrollment in the program is free, and participants can be up and running the same day. Associates range from large and small businesses to nonprofits, authors, publishers, personal home pages, and more. The popularity of the program is reflected in the range of additions to the Associates Community in the past few months: Adobe, InfoBeat, Kemper Funds, PR Newswire, Travelocity, Virtual Vineyards, and Xoom."