WASHINGTON, June 17 (UPI) -- From its beginnings in a garage to its current status as a Fortune 500 company, Amazon.com has a lot to look forward to in the coming month -- including a star-studded 10th anniversary concert and huge potential sales of the sixth book in the Harry Potter series.
The Amazon.com 10th anniversary celebration, presented by Chase of JPMorgan Chase & Co., will begin at 5 p.m. PDT July 16. Only Seattle-based company employees will be in the audience, but the concert will be webcast live from Amazon's site to viewers across the country.
Comedian Bill Maher will host the event, which will include performances from musical artists Bob Dylan and Norah Jones, along with live readings from authors James Patterson and Jim Collins. Exclusive "never-before-seen" footage from the DVD series "Lord of the Rings" also will be shown.
"The most important reason why we're hosting the event is because we want the millions of Amazon customers to enjoy it," Jani Strand, a spokeswoman for the company, told United Press International.
Along with the concert, Amazon is gearing up for the July 16 release of the sixth book in the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling and Mary GrandPre. Called "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," Amazon is offering a 40-percent discount on its Web site and is guaranteeing release-date delivery of the book to customers who have pre-ordered a copy by July 11.
According to the "Hour-by-Hour Harry Potter Meter" -- a tally of pre-ordered book sales on Amazon.com -- customers have ordered nearly 600,000 copies. A total of 800,000 copies were pre-ordered for the release of the fifth book in the series in 2003. Strand said the company does not want to speculate on total sales for this book, saying "we're just really pleased with how it's doing so far."
Amazon customers now can pre-order popular books and shop for millions of items on the company's expansive Internet site, but the company arose from humble beginnings. Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive officer, created Amazon more than a decade ago in a garage near Seattle. In July 1995 the company "opened its virtual doors" to the World Wide Web and spent its first few years focusing on selling books to customers across the country.
In May 1997 Amazon went public and in 1998 opened its online DVD, movie and music store. By 2001 it expanded its online offerings to electronics, home improvement, kitchen, apparel and accessories categories.
Today Amazon's main Web site, amazon.com, includes categories such as "Kids & Baby," "Home & Garden" and "Automotive," and online shoppers can purchase furniture, iPods, automobile tires and just about anything else they want shipped to their doorstep.
The company has been successful because it has balanced technological and logistical infrastructure and has made some bold moves, said Tridas Mukhopadhyay, professor of e-business at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
"A lot of dot-coms failed not because they didn't have a good idea but because they couldn't match up their technical expertise with their logistical expertise, which Amazon has done," he said.
The ease of navigation on Amazon's Web site and the availability of over 900,000 independent merchants accessible through the site have made Amazon.com a "darling" for internet-savvy consumers, Mukhopadhyay said.
"They have a very high-end, sophisticated technical infrastructure that is reliable and that also has gotten the trust of millions of people," he said.
Amazon also has expanded globally, and online customers around the world can access many of its products through Web sites the company has created in the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, France, Canada, Australia and China.
Mukhopadhyay said Amazon has been successful overall because of its mass appeal and business sense.
"For a section of consumers who like convenience, who are savvy in technology and who cannot wait," he said, "they find Amazon to be the right kind of merchant they want to deal with."
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Catherine Sharoky is an intern for UPI Science News. E-mail: [email protected]
