AMAZON.COM PROFILE

Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN), is a leading global Internet company and one of the most trafficked Internet retail destinations worldwide.

Amazon is one of the first companies to sell products deep into the long tail by housing them in numerous warehouses and distributing products from many partner companies. Amazon directly sells or acts as a platform for the sale of a broad range of products. These include books, music, videos, consumer electronics, clothing and household products. The majority of Amazon’s sales are products sold by Amazon, though many are from third-party sellers.

Amazon was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. It has direct international operations in the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Since 2004, Amazon has begun to rapidly expand its web services arsenal. Products such as Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) andAmazon S3 (Simple Storage System), Amazon Route 53 have been large successes.

Some of Amazon’s recent acquisitions include Shopbop (2006),Abebooks (2008), Zappos (2009), LOVEFiLM (2011).

As of Q1 2011, Amazon has approximately 137 million active customers worldwide. It was also reported that there are 2 million merchants selling on Amazon equaling a third of the total listings. North America currently represents 55.4% of sales with the other 44.6% in the International market.

CEO:

Jeffrey Preston "Jeff" Bezos (/beɪzəs/, born January 12, 1964) is an American entrepreneur who played a key role in the growth of e-commerce as the founder and chief executive officer of Amazon.com, Inc., an online merchant of books and later of a wide variety of products. Under his guidance, Amazon.com became the largest retailer on the World Wide Web and the model for Internet sales.

Locations

Amazon has offices, fulfillment centers, customer service centers and software development centers across North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia.

[edit]Headquarters

Amazon.com's former headquarters in the former U.S. Public Health Hospital (Merchant Marine & Indians) in Beacon Hill, Seattle.

The company's global headquarters are in Seattle's South Lake Union neighborhood. The European headquarters are in Luxembourg's capital, Luxembourg City. Amazon also has headquarters in Miami, Florida.

Amazon.com's new headquarters building in South Lake Union, Seattle, Washington.

[edit]Software development centers

While much of Amazon's software development occurs in Seattle, the company employs software developers in centers across the globe. Some of these sites are run by an Amazon subsidiary called A2Z Development.

• North America

• USA: Cambridge, MA; Charleston, SC; Cupertino, CA; Orange County, CA;San Francisco, CA; San Luis Obispo, CA;,Seattle, WA; and Tempe, AZ
• Canada: Vancouver, British Columbia and Mississauga, Ontario

• Europe

• UK: Slough (England) and Edinburgh (Scotland)
• Ireland: Dublin
• Romania: Iaşi

• Asia

• India: Bangalore, Chennai, and Hyderabad
• Japan: Shibuya (Tokyo)
• China: Beijing

• Africa

• South Africa: Cape Town

[edit]Call Centers

• USA: Kennewick, WA; Huntington, WV; Grand Forks, ND
• India: Hyderabad
• South Africa: Cape Town
• the Philippines: Convergys Cebu, Convergys Bacolod

Amazon Prime

Amazon Prime is a service of free two-day shipping on all eligible purchases, for a flat annual fee, as well as discounted one-day shipping rates. Amazon launched the program in the contiguous United States in 2005, in Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany in 2007, and in France (as "Amazon Premium") in 2008.

Amazon Prime membership also provides the instant streaming of movies and TV shows at no additional cost, as of February 2011.In November 2011, it was announced that Prime members have access to the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, which allows users to borrow certain popular titles for free, up to one book a month, with no due date.