BigAmazon.com continues expansion and strong growth. LOL
Subj: Looking Ahead
Date: 7/3/00 5:31:40 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: assoc-1@amazon.com (Amazon.com Associates Program)
To: floyd
Dear Amazon.com Associate:
In June 1998, Amazon launched its Music store and became much more
than Earth's biggest bookstore. In just two years, we've added fifteen
new categories ranging from software to tools; we will continue to
launch new stores to solidify Amazon.com's position as the place to
find and discover anything you want to buy online. This anniversary
seemed a good time to reflect on what this transformation has meant to
you as a member of our Associates network and where Amazon.com and our
Associates Program are headed.
It's incredible to think that just two years ago, books represented
100% of Amazon.com's revenue. Today, strong growth in books is
enhanced by sales of many other products (music, videos, electronics,
software, toys and games, tools, lawn and patio items, and
kitchenware); these newer lines represented more than half of our
revenues in Q4. Customers worldwide can select from tens of millions
of products from our various stores, all in one convenient shopping
session. The diversity and rapid expansion of our product lines is a
key Amazon.com advantage to our business and to our Associates. The
customer buying a book is now adding a cordless drill, a Santana CD,
and a Palm organizer into one shopping basket. Each new store we offer
makes Amazon.com more valuable to you, our Associates, and increases
the frequency with which your site visitors shop, earning you more
referral fees.
As we expand rapidly, Amazon.com continues to win best-of-breed
awards, not only for our more established products but for our new
stores as well. To highlight the success of one store, Amazon.com Toys
has earned multiple high merits including: Playthings' E-tailer of the
Year; PC Magazine--Editors' Choice Award--Toys; Consumer Reports
e-Ratings Top Toys Site; and for the second year in a row, Amazon.com
Toys has won the top spot in Forrester Research's Power Rankings of
online toy stores. In each case, Amazon.com won out over a number of
more established brands.
While the news lately is full of stories about failing dot-coms,
Amazon.com is healthy and getting healthier. All signs at Amazon.com
show a clear path to profitability and continued growth into the
future. Our numbers tell the story best:
* Sales grew from $294 million Q1'99 to over $574 million Q1'00,
fueled by exceptional value and service to consumers rather than
short-term low/no margin price practices or costly marketing
campaigns.
* We began 2000 with 16.9 million customers and added another 3.1
million new customers in Q1'00. We closed 1999 with a repeat
customer rate of 73 percent; this number has continued to climb in
2000 to over 76 percent... yet another testament to our ability to
satisfy consumers.
* Our Q1 '00 financials show that we have over $1 billion in cash
reserves.
* Amazon continues to rank as a top destination and as one of the
Internet's most recognizable brands.
What does this mean to you, our Associates? Amazon.com is here to stay
as an ally you can depend on. With your help, we will succeed at
building Earth's most customer-centric company. We will be here to
serve your hard-earned visitors with exceptional and reliable service.
Amazon.com's Associates Program is one of the company's proudest
achievements to date. As the first, largest, most widely adopted, and
most copied program of its kind, our Associates Program is and will
remain an integral part of our business. Now more than 450,000
Associates strong, our program remains the proven choice across a wide
breadth of product categories.
We continually strive to improve our program's offering. We are
particularly excited about the newest advances in Associates Central
such as improved tools in Build-A-Link, new payment options,
downloadable reports, and more timely merchandising news. If you
haven't already done so, I encourage you to take advantage of the
newest features and tools we're providing. Please check into
Associates Central often, as we have many new improvements to come,
all designed to make your participation in Associates as rewarding as
possible.
Thank you for your continued participation the Amazon.com Associates
program; we genuinely appreciate our relationship with you and look
forward to many more years of working together.
Sincerely,
Daniel Malarkey, Director
Amazon.com Associates
p.s. our lawyers like us to add the following.......
This announcement contains forward-looking statements that involve
risks and uncertainties that include, among others, Amazon.com's
limited operating history, anticipated losses, unpredictability of
future revenues, potential fluctuations in quarterly operating
results, seasonality, consumer trends, competition, risk of
distribution center expansion, risks related to fourth quarter, risks
of system interruption, management of potential growth, risks related
to auction and zShops services, risks related to fraud and Amazon.com
Payments, and risks of new business areas, international expansion,
business combinations, and strategic alliances. More information about
factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results
is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year
ended 1999 and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended
March 31, 2000.
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