Amazon.com, Inc. operates retail Web sites, as well as offers programs that enable third parties to sell products on its Web sites. The company also provides services for third-party retailers, marketing and promotional services, and Web services for developers.
The company, together with third parties, sells various product categories, such as Books; Music; DVD; Unbox Video Downloads; VHS; Magazines and Newspapers; Video Games; Software; Amazon Shorts; Electronics; Audio and Video; Camera and Photo; Cell Phones and Service; Computers and PC Hardware; Office Products; Musical Instruments; Outlet; Home and Garden; Bed and Bath; Furniture and Decor; Gourmet Food; Kitchen and Housewares; Outdoor Living; Pet Supplies; Automotive; Tools and Hardware; Industrial and Scientific; Apparel and Accessories; Shoes; Jewelry and Watches; Grocery; Beauty Health and Personal Care; Sports and Outdoors; Toys and Games; and Baby.
Segments
The Company has organized its operations into two principal segments: North America and International.
North America segment
The North America segment engages in the retail sale of consumer products (including from third-party sellers) and subscriptions through North America-focused Web sites such as www.amazon.com, www.amazon.ca, www.shopbop.com, and www.endless.com; from its mail-order tool catalog phone orders; from its Amazon Prime membership program; and from non-retail activities such as North America-focused Amazon Enterprise Solutions, marketing, and promotional agreements. This segment includes export sales from www.amazon.com and www.amazon.ca.
International segment
The International segment engages in the retail sale of consumer products (including from third-party sellers) and subscriptions through internationally focused Web sites such as www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, and www.joyo.com; from its DVD rental service and from non-retail activities, such as internationally focused marketing and promotional agreements. This segment includes export sales from these internationally based sites (including export sales from these sites to customers in the U.S. and Canada), but excludes export sales from www.amazon.com and www.amazon.ca.
The company also operates other Web sites, including www.a9.com and www.alexa.com that enable search and navigation and www.imdb.com, a movie database.
Amazon.com Retail and Third-Party Sellers
The company sources and sells various products to its customers worldwide across dozens of product categories. Through Amazon Services, it offers Amazon Marketplace and Merchants programs that enable third parties to sell their products on its Web sites, allow customers to shop for products owned by third parties, and allow individuals to transactions that include multiple sellers in a single checkout process.
Amazon Marketplace serves individuals and small businesses, enabling them to offer their products for sale on its Web sites alongside its products and products made available by other third-party sellers. It also offers fulfillment-related services to third-party sellers through Fulfillment by Amazon.
The company has launched an Internet store for classical music fans. The Classical Music Blowout Store will offer consumers a selection of approximately 2,000 titles.
Services
Merchant Services: Amazon Enterprise Solutions offers third party retailers e-commerce, proven technology, and operational infrastructure to enable third party e-commerce businesses operating under their own brand name and Web site address.
Developer Services: The company offers various Web services that provide developers with direct access to Amazon.com’s robust technology platform and enable them to build applications on their own. These services include:
Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) provides a Web services interface for storing and retrieving data from anywhere on the Web.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) provides a scalable up and down virtual computing environment, allowing developers to use Web service interfaces to requisition machines for use and load them with their custom application environment, making Web-scale computing easier for developers.
Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS) offers a scalable hosted queue for storing messages as they travel between computers.
Amazon Mechanical Turk provides a Web service for computers to integrate a network of humans directly into their processes.
Amazon E-Commerce Service (ECS) exposes its product data and e-commerce functionality to allow developers, Web site owners and merchants to control the data and functionality that the company uses to power its own e-commerce businesses.
Alexa’s Web Services offers a platform for creating Web solutions and services based on Alexa’s repository of information about the Web.
History
Amazon.com, Inc. was incorporated in 1994.
