by Phemmy Sobalaje

Created on: June 20, 2009   Last Updated: July 08, 2009

Amazon.com was originally owned and founded by a man called Jeff Bezos from Washington DC in 1994 with the idea of selling media things. Nick Hanauer who happened to be a businessman decided to invest $40,000 in the business because he trusted Bezos. When the business went online the very first time,the site layout was not flashy and convincing as it is today. So, this drove many visitors away and made the venture a bit shaky.A year later(precisely in 1995), another businessman Tom Alburg by name decided to put in $100,000 which helped the company to get a better hosting and design facilities.The awe that came over Bezos was that people purchased more of books than any other products from Amazon.com not only in Washington but also all over the country(United States of America).

Bezos decided to coin more than just a bookstore to make his customers flood back to the site. One of what he added was to adjoin the book reviews so as to know the customer's interest on purchase. By 1997, Amazon had made $15.7million as revenue. A few months later, they decided to add CDs and movies to the catalog of the site. In 1998, an attempt was made to add to catalog of the site: software, electronics, video games, toys, and home improvement items.It was succesful indeed with the introduction of the idea. The company began to show marks of success in the running.

In June 1999, Amazon bought Alexa Internet, Accept.com and Exchange with deals worth $645 million. By the end of 1999, the company had gathered over a billion dollar revenue. It seemed as if the profit would never stop due to spontaneous increase in the success. In 2001, Amazon recorded a loss of $1.4billion dollars as the fiscal loss. And in the last year, they had dismissed over 200 workers. This totalled towards 1000 when the company was experiencing a vast loss. Instead of Bezos renouncing, He then fashioned to make or what i call "recruiting other companies sell their products through Amazon online". This idea worked well. Some companies like Target, Toys r Us and a host others get through and created more profit for Amazon and the companies recruited.Since then,Amazon had been back on the platform of success and remains one of largest media store in the world. The company grew from medium- to large-sized centers across the globe. Amazon has established separate websites in Canda, UK, Germany, France, Japan and China. By 2008, the site had attracted at least 650million visitors. This twice the result released by WalMart. Amazon had co-operated with over 130 publishers to allow users to perform searches.

In October 2008 Amazon acquired Reflexive Entertainment, a video game development company.

On January 15 2009, a survey published by Verdit Research founded Amazon to be the best UK favourite music and video retailer and was ranked third in the overall ranking in the world. In March 2009, Amazon announced plans to shut down some US distribution centres (Nevada, Penn and Indiana). According to information published, Amazon accrues 40% of its sales from affiliates whom they call associates and third-party sellers.

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