Amazon.com exclusives
An Amazon.com exclusive is a product, usually a DVD, that is available exclusively on Amazon.com. Some DVDs are produced by the owner of the film/product, while others are produced by Amazon.com, itself. The DVDs produced by Amazon are made using their Createspace program, in which DVDs are created once ordered using DVD-R technology. The DVDs are then shipped about two days later after being produced. Some DVDs (such as the Jersey Shore Season 1 or The Unusuals Season 1) first release their DVD on Amazon as an Amazon.com Exclusive for a limited time before being released elsewhere. On May 23, 2011, Amazon.com allowed customers to download Lady Gaga's Born This Way album for $0.99, resulting in some downloads being delayed due to an extremely high volume of downloads. [95]
[edit]Website
The domain amazon.com attracted at least 615 million visitors annually by 2008, twice the number of walmart.com.[96] Amazon attracts approximately 65 million customers to its U.S. website per month.[97] The company has also invested heavily on a massive amount of server capacity for its website, especially to handle the excessive traffic during the December Christmas holiday season.[98] There are different versions of the website for different countries, such as amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.at, amazon.jp, amazon.ca, amazon.es. These sites vary in assortment and prices.
[edit]Reviews
See also Amazon.com controversies#Amazon Reviews
Amazon allows users to submit reviews to the web page of each product. Reviewers must rate the product on a rating scale from one to five stars. As with most rating scales, one star stands for the product being abysmal, five stars meaning that the item is stellar. Amazon provides an optional badging option for reviewers which indicate the real name of the reviewer (based on confirmation of a credit card account) or which indicate that the reviewer is one of the top reviewers by popularity. Customers may comment or vote on the reviews, indicating whether or not they found it helpful to them.
[edit]Content search
"Search Inside the Book" is a feature which allows customers to search for keywords in the full text of many books in the catalog.[99][100] The feature started with 120,000 titles (or 33 million pages of text) on October 23, 2003.[101] There are currently about 300,000 books in the program. Amazon has cooperated with around 130 publishers to allow users to perform these searches.
To avoid copyright violations, amazon.com does not return the computer-readable text of the book. Instead, it returns a picture of the matching page, disables printing, and puts limits on the number of pages in a book a single user can access. Additionally, customers can purchase online access to some of the same books via the "Amazon Upgrade" program.
[edit]Third-party sellers
Amazon derives about 40 percent of its sales from affiliate marketing called "Amazon Associates" and third-party sellers who sell products on Amazon[citation needed]. Associates receive a commission for referring customers to Amazon by placing links on their websites to Amazon, if the referral results in a sale. Worldwide, Amazon has "over 900,000 members" in its affiliate programs.[102] Amazon reported over 1.3 million sellers sold products through Amazon's World Wide Web sites in 2007. Unlike eBay, Amazon sellers do not have to maintain separate payment accounts; all payments are handled by Amazon.
Associates can access the Amazon catalog directly on their websites by using the Amazon Web Services (AWS) XML service. A new affiliate product, aStore, allows Associates to embed a subset of Amazon products within, or linked to another website. In June 2010, Amazon Seller Product Suggestions was launched (rumored to be internally called "Project Genesis") to provide more transparency to sellers by recommending specific products to third party sellers to sell on Amazon. Products suggested are based on customers' browsing history.[103]
A January 2010 survey of third-party sellers by Auctionbytes.com [104] found that Amazon was 4th overall.[105] Amazon.com placed second in "Profitability". Its lowest rating, but still above average, was in "Ease of Use". Sellers felt it had clearly defined rules, provided a steady stream of traffic to their listings, and put less emphasis on a community component. Amazon came in second in the Recommended Selling Venue category.
[edit]Amazon sales rank
The Amazon sales rank (ASR) provides an indication of the popularity of a product sold on any Amazon locale. It is a relative indicator of popularity that is updated on an hourly basis. Effectively it is a "best sellers list" for the millions of products stocked by Amazon.[106] While the ASR has no direct effect on the sales of a product, it is used by Amazon to determine which products to include in their best sellers lists.[106] Products that appear in these lists enjoy additional exposure on the Amazon website and this may lead to an increase in sales. In particular, products that experience large jumps (up or down) in their sales ranks may be included within Amazon's lists of "movers and shakers" and this also provides additional exposure that may lead to an increase in sales.[107] For competitive reasons, Amazon does not release actual sales figures to the public. Amazon, however, has now begun to release point of sales data via the Nielsen BookScan service to verified authors. [108] While the ASR has been the source of much speculation by publishers, manufacturers and marketers, Amazon themselves do not release the details of their sales rank calculation algorithm. In addition, they state:
Please keep in mind that our sales rank figures are simply meant to be a guide of general interest for the customer and not definitive sales information for publishers - we assume you have this information regularly from your distribution sources
[edit]Controversies
Main article: Amazon.com controversies
Since its founding, the company has attracted criticism and controversy from multiple sources over its actions. These include: investigative reports of more than 15 workers hospitalized for heat exposure, summary terminations for breast cancer and other health issues, and other allegations in its warehouses in Breinigsville, PA; lesser complaints at its Marston Gate, UK facility; avoiding and opposing sales tax collection duties; anti-unionization efforts; Amazon Kindle remote content removal; taking public subsidies; its "1-Click patent" claims; anti-competitive actions; price discrimination;various decisions over whether to censor or publish content such as the WikiLeaks web site; LGBT book sales rank; and works containing libel, facilitating dogfight, cockfight, or pedophile activities.
[edit]Sales and use taxes
Main article: Amazon tax
In the United States, Amazon collects sales tax from just five states. Amazon is under increasing legal and political pressure from state governments, traditional retailers and other groups because of its refusal to collect sales tax in 40 of the 45 states with a statewide sales tax (as of May, 2011). Those 40 states include at least 12 where Amazon has a clear physical presence[109] via distribution centers and wholly owned subsidiaries. Critics of Amazon argue that its refusal to collect sales taxes has given it an unfair advantage over traditional retailers. While customers are required to remit use tax directly to their state, few customers do so.
Amazon says it would support a federal solution to the sales tax problem as long as such legislation was fair and simple. As of May 2011 legislation has been introduced in Congress to allow states to impose sales taxes on sales to their residents from out of state. Amazon has not expressed a public position on the bill. Amazon's competitors say it is insincere. Similar legislation, called the Main Street Fairness Act, failed in committee in 2010. Several earlier versions of the bill also failed to advance. Amazon lobbyists met four times with members of Congress or their aides in 2010 regarding the Main Street Fairness Act. The company spent $610,000 on lobbying in 2010, although these expenses also covered other bills discussed at the same time. Amazon has increased political contributions to federal lawmakers. Amazon's political action committee spent $214,000 during the 2010 election cycle, double what it spent for the 2008 elections. [110]
This issue doesn't apply in most of the other countries where Amazon operates, as sales tax/value added tax, is uniform throughout the country, and Amazon is obliged to charge it to all customers.
[edit]Lobbying
Amazon.com lobbies the federal government and state governments on issues such as the enforcement of sales taxes on online sales, transportation safety, privacy and data protection, and intellectual property. According to regulatory filings Amazon.com focuses its lobbying on the US Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Reserve. Amazon.com spent $450,000 on lobbying during the second quarter of 2011, $630,000 in the first quarter of 2011, and $500,000 during the second quarter of 2010. [111]
[edit]Entrepreneurship by former employees
A number of companies have been started and founded by former Amazon.com employees.[112]
BankBazaar.com was founded by Arjun Shetty, a former senior product manager at Amazon.com
Evri was led by Neil Roseman, a former VP at Amazon.com
Findory was founded by Greg Linden
Flipkart was founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, former Amazon India employees.[113]
Infibeam was founded by Vishal Mehta, former Amazon employee
Foodista was founded by Barnaby Dorfman
Hulu is led by Jason Kilar, a former SVP at Amazon.com
Jambool/SocialGold was co-founded by former Amazon.com engineers Vikas Gupta and Reza Hussein
Medio Systems was founded by Brian Lent, a former Director of Information Technology at Amazon.com
Quora was co-founded by ex-Amazon.com (and Facebook) engineer Charlie Cheever
TeachStreet was founded by Dave Schappell, an early Amazon.com product manager
The Book Depository was founded by Andrew Crawford, former Amazon.co.uk employee.
TrackSimple was founded by Jon Ingalls and Ajit Banerjee
Trusera was founded by Keith Schorsch, an early Amazonian
Twilio was founded by Jeff Lawson, Technical Product Manager at Amazon
Vittana was founded by Kushal Chakrabarti, a tech lead at Amazon, and Brett Witt with financial backing from a number of early Amazon VPs
Pelago was co-founded by Jeff Holden, a former SVP at Amazon.com and Darren Vengroff, a former Principal Engineer
Wikinvest was founded by Michael Sha
Yellowleg.com was founded by Aashish Gupta, former Amazon.com and Amazon India employee.
Off & Away was founded by Doug Aley, former sr. product manager, and Michael Walton, former product manager at Amazon.com
Chakpak.com[114] was founded by ex-Amazon India engineers Nitin Rajput and Gaurav Singh Kushwaha[115]
[edit]See also
Seattle portal
Companies portal
Internet portalAmazon.com exclusives
An Amazon.com exclusive is a product, usually a DVD, that is available exclusively on Amazon.com. Some DVDs are produced by the owner of the film/product, while others are produced by Amazon.com, itself. The DVDs produced by Amazon are made using their Createspace program, in which DVDs are created once ordered using DVD-R technology. The DVDs are then shipped about two days later after being produced. Some DVDs (such as the Jersey Shore Season 1 or The Unusuals Season 1) first release their DVD on Amazon as an Amazon.com Exclusive for a limited time before being released elsewhere. On May 23, 2011, Amazon.com allowed customers to download Lady Gaga's Born This Way album for $0.99, resulting in some downloads being delayed due to an extremely high volume of downloads. [95]
[edit]Website
The domain amazon.com attracted at least 615 million visitors annually by 2008, twice the number of walmart.com.[96] Amazon attracts approximately 65 million customers to its U.S. website per month.[97] The company has also invested heavily on a massive amount of server capacity for its website, especially to handle the excessive traffic during the December Christmas holiday season.[98] There are different versions of the website for different countries, such as amazon.co.uk, amazon.fr, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.at, amazon.jp, amazon.ca, amazon.es. These sites vary in assortment and prices.
[edit]Reviews
See also Amazon.com controversies#Amazon Reviews
Amazon allows users to submit reviews to the web page of each product. Reviewers must rate the product on a rating scale from one to five stars. As with most rating scales, one star stands for the product being abysmal, five stars meaning that the item is stellar. Amazon provides an optional badging option for reviewers which indicate the real name of the reviewer (based on confirmation of a credit card account) or which indicate that the reviewer is one of the top reviewers by popularity. Customers may comment or vote on the reviews, indicating whether or not they found it helpful to them.
[edit]Content search
"Search Inside the Book" is a feature which allows customers to search for keywords in the full text of many books in the catalog.[99][100] The feature started with 120,000 titles (or 33 million pages of text) on October 23, 2003.[101] There are currently about 300,000 books in the program. Amazon has cooperated with around 130 publishers to allow users to perform these searches.
To avoid copyright violations, amazon.com does not return the computer-readable text of the book. Instead, it returns a picture of the matching page, disables printing, and puts limits on the number of pages in a book a single user can access. Additionally, customers can purchase online access to some of the same books via the "Amazon Upgrade" program.
[edit]Third-party sellers
Amazon derives about 40 percent of its sales from affiliate marketing called "Amazon Associates" and third-party sellers who sell products on Amazon[citation needed]. Associates receive a commission for referring customers to Amazon by placing links on their websites to Amazon, if the referral results in a sale. Worldwide, Amazon has "over 900,000 members" in its affiliate programs.[102] Amazon reported over 1.3 million sellers sold products through Amazon's World Wide Web sites in 2007. Unlike eBay, Amazon sellers do not have to maintain separate payment accounts; all payments are handled by Amazon.
Associates can access the Amazon catalog directly on their websites by using the Amazon Web Services (AWS) XML service. A new affiliate product, aStore, allows Associates to embed a subset of Amazon products within, or linked to another website. In June 2010, Amazon Seller Product Suggestions was launched (rumored to be internally called "Project Genesis") to provide more transparency to sellers by recommending specific products to third party sellers to sell on Amazon. Products suggested are based on customers' browsing history.[103]
A January 2010 survey of third-party sellers by Auctionbytes.com [104] found that Amazon was 4th overall.[105] Amazon.com placed second in "Profitability". Its lowest rating, but still above average, was in "Ease of Use". Sellers felt it had clearly defined rules, provided a steady stream of traffic to their listings, and put less emphasis on a community component. Amazon came in second in the Recommended Selling Venue category.
[edit]Amazon sales rank
The Amazon sales rank (ASR) provides an indication of the popularity of a product sold on any Amazon locale. It is a relative indicator of popularity that is updated on an hourly basis. Effectively it is a "best sellers list" for the millions of products stocked by Amazon.[106] While the ASR has no direct effect on the sales of a product, it is used by Amazon to determine which products to include in their best sellers lists.[106] Products that appear in these lists enjoy additional exposure on the Amazon website and this may lead to an increase in sales. In particular, products that experience large jumps (up or down) in their sales ranks may be included within Amazon's lists of "movers and shakers" and this also provides additional exposure that may lead to an increase in sales.[107] For competitive reasons, Amazon does not release actual sales figures to the public. Amazon, however, has now begun to release point of sales data via the Nielsen BookScan service to verified authors. [108] While the ASR has been the source of much speculation by publishers, manufacturers and marketers, Amazon themselves do not release the details of their sales rank calculation algorithm. In addition, they state:
Please keep in mind that our sales rank figures are simply meant to be a guide of general interest for the customer and not definitive sales information for publishers - we assume you have this information regularly from your distribution sources
[edit]Controversies
Main article: Amazon.com controversies
Since its founding, the company has attracted criticism and controversy from multiple sources over its actions. These include: investigative reports of more than 15 workers hospitalized for heat exposure, summary terminations for breast cancer and other health issues, and other allegations in its warehouses in Breinigsville, PA; lesser complaints at its Marston Gate, UK facility; avoiding and opposing sales tax collection duties; anti-unionization efforts; Amazon Kindle remote content removal; taking public subsidies; its "1-Click patent" claims; anti-competitive actions; price discrimination;various decisions over whether to censor or publish content such as the WikiLeaks web site; LGBT book sales rank; and works containing libel, facilitating dogfight, cockfight, or pedophile activities.
[edit]Sales and use taxes
Main article: Amazon tax
In the United States, Amazon collects sales tax from just five states. Amazon is under increasing legal and political pressure from state governments, traditional retailers and other groups because of its refusal to collect sales tax in 40 of the 45 states with a statewide sales tax (as of May, 2011). Those 40 states include at least 12 where Amazon has a clear physical presence[109] via distribution centers and wholly owned subsidiaries. Critics of Amazon argue that its refusal to collect sales taxes has given it an unfair advantage over traditional retailers. While customers are required to remit use tax directly to their state, few customers do so.
Amazon says it would support a federal solution to the sales tax problem as long as such legislation was fair and simple. As of May 2011 legislation has been introduced in Congress to allow states to impose sales taxes on sales to their residents from out of state. Amazon has not expressed a public position on the bill. Amazon's competitors say it is insincere. Similar legislation, called the Main Street Fairness Act, failed in committee in 2010. Several earlier versions of the bill also failed to advance. Amazon lobbyists met four times with members of Congress or their aides in 2010 regarding the Main Street Fairness Act. The company spent $610,000 on lobbying in 2010, although these expenses also covered other bills discussed at the same time. Amazon has increased political contributions to federal lawmakers. Amazon's political action committee spent $214,000 during the 2010 election cycle, double what it spent for the 2008 elections. [110]
This issue doesn't apply in most of the other countries where Amazon operates, as sales tax/value added tax, is uniform throughout the country, and Amazon is obliged to charge it to all customers.
[edit]Lobbying
Amazon.com lobbies the federal government and state governments on issues such as the enforcement of sales taxes on online sales, transportation safety, privacy and data protection, and intellectual property. According to regulatory filings Amazon.com focuses its lobbying on the US Congress, the Federal Communications Commission, and the Federal Reserve. Amazon.com spent $450,000 on lobbying during the second quarter of 2011, $630,000 in the first quarter of 2011, and $500,000 during the second quarter of 2010. [111]
[edit]Entrepreneurship by former employees
A number of companies have been started and founded by former Amazon.com employees.[112]
BankBazaar.com was founded by Arjun Shetty, a former senior product manager at Amazon.com
Evri was led by Neil Roseman, a former VP at Amazon.com
Findory was founded by Greg Linden
Flipkart was founded by Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, former Amazon India employees.[113]
Infibeam was founded by Vishal Mehta, former Amazon employee
Foodista was founded by Barnaby Dorfman
Hulu is led by Jason Kilar, a former SVP at Amazon.com
Jambool/SocialGold was co-founded by former Amazon.com engineers Vikas Gupta and Reza Hussein
Medio Systems was founded by Brian Lent, a former Director of Information Technology at Amazon.com
Quora was co-founded by ex-Amazon.com (and Facebook) engineer Charlie Cheever
TeachStreet was founded by Dave Schappell, an early Amazon.com product manager
The Book Depository was founded by Andrew Crawford, former Amazon.co.uk employee.
TrackSimple was founded by Jon Ingalls and Ajit Banerjee
Trusera was founded by Keith Schorsch, an early Amazonian
Twilio was founded by Jeff Lawson, Technical Product Manager at Amazon
Vittana was founded by Kushal Chakrabarti, a tech lead at Amazon, and Brett Witt with financial backing from a number of early Amazon VPs
Pelago was co-founded by Jeff Holden, a former SVP at Amazon.com and Darren Vengroff, a former Principal Engineer
Wikinvest was founded by Michael Sha
Yellowleg.com was founded by Aashish Gupta, former Amazon.com and Amazon India employee.
Off & Away was founded by Doug Aley, former sr. product manager, and Michael Walton, former product manager at Amazon.com
Chakpak.com[114] was founded by ex-Amazon India engineers Nitin Rajput and Gaurav Singh Kushwaha[115]
[edit]See also
Seattle portal
Companies portal
Internet portal
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
Amazon Standard Id
Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award
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