Amazon.com is an On-line retailer of, originally, books. The company was established as a micro enterprise in the US in 1994. Since then it has enjoyed rapid expansion in all aspects of its operations, including business turnover, and a spectacular rise in share value since public floatation in 1997. New on-line sites based in Germany and UK and a distribution centre in Amsterdam were established in 1998 to cater for European markets. On August 30, 2000 Amzon.com launched …showed first 75 words of 374 total…

…showed last 75 words of 374 total…great variety of products and consumer tastes, and tastes which hanker after a lot of information about the products. Moreover, there is room for bringing down margins, i.e. offering customers deep discounts. Jeff Bezos picked the name Amazon because it is the biggest river on earth. He wanted his on-line bookstore to become "Earth's Biggest Bookstore", but without the need to stock vast quantities of books. Amazon.com would be lean, fit but hungry.