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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: H James Morris who wrote (47767)	3/29/1999 12:23:00 AM
From: Rainy_Day_Woman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

thanks for posting the article

To: H James Morris who wrote (47767)	3/29/1999 12:29:00 AM
From: astyanax	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

AMZN, LORD OF THE ONLINE AUCTION JUNGLE! So any predictions for open in wake of the online auction foray? God, you should check out my utterly manic "EBAY.TOAST!?" hair-pulling post just now at Ebay's SI board. I haven't slept in 18 hours and I just read the big press release from AMZN. Man, one thing's for sure - gonna be big action for EBAY and AMZN at tomorrow's open. I WONDER IF MY FEEDBACK AT EBAY CAN SOMEHOW TRANSFER SEAMLESSLY TO AMAZON? God knows no longtime Ebay user can deal with the infintely high switching costs involved in "starting over" their personal capital ratings...<sob>i'm gonna lose my wittle yellow star<sob>...me wanna get a big blue star at Ebay, waaah...blah blah...goog nite... P.S. CHRISTOPHER BYRON OF MSNBC WHO DECLARED AMAZON AN "IPO DOG" FROM THE VERY BEGINNING IS WHISPERING TO ME NOW IN MY DREAMS: "BOY DID I DROP THE BALL ON THIS ONE, BIG TIME!" -Netconductor.com

To: H James Morris who wrote (47767)	3/29/1999 2:39:00 AM
From: Indra H	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

Analyst Alan Braverman comment on Amzn entering the online auction. On Friday, analyst Alan Braverman of NationsBanc Montgomery Securities suggested on cnbc that Amazon.com may add an online auction service to its offerings, which latter he/cnbc claims as rummors. My question is this considered insider info?? or does a company like amzn tell the analyst of their bussiness plan, (even the apporximate time of the announcement??) please correct me if i am wrong.., would appreciate any comment. thanx, IH

To: H James Morris who wrote (47767)	3/29/1999 4:46:00 AM
From: Robert Brooks	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 164684

WSJ ARTICLE March 29, 1999 Amazon.com Will Go Head to Head With eBay, Onsale in Online Auctions By GEORGE ANDERS Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL Amazon.com Inc. is about to enter the online-auction market, greatly widening its selling repertoire while creating head-to-head competition with other leading Internet-commerce companies such as eBay Inc. and Onsale Inc. Amazon's initiative marks the fourth major business expansion by the Seattle Internet retailer in the past year. Amazon began business in 1995 as an online bookseller. Last year, it added music and video offerings, and launched a "Shop the Web" service that lets customers order merchandise from other vendors. Amazon.com Gives Junglee Site a Major Marketing Makeover Company Profile: Amazon.com In a draft letter to customers, Amazon's chief executive officer, Jeff Bezos, said the new auction service will let people "buy and sell virtually anything at Amazon.com -- rare books and signed first editions, rare music, vintage toys, antiques, sports memorabilia and collectibles of all kinds." The letter is to be posted on the Amazon Web site (www.amazon.com) within the next week or two. People familiar with Amazon's auction initiative said the Seattle company has signed up at least 117 smaller businesses that will run auctions on its Web site. This list includes 11 companies specializing in collectibles, nine in electronics and photo gear and 24 in clothing and jewelry. Amazon users will be able to access all these auctions from Amazon's own home page on the Web. In some cases, Amazon's business partners will be selling merchandise from their existing product catalogs. In other cases, Amazon and its partners will let members of the public list whatever goods they want to sell. In a brief telephone interview, Amazon's Mr. Bezos said the new service will "certainly start with tens of thousands of listings and may have hundreds of thousands." He said auctioned items will be aggressively marketed on other parts of the Amazon site, in hopes of spurring customer traffic. Memorabilia from the making of the movie "Titanic," for example, will be featured on Amazon's movie and music pages. People who have seen preliminary versions of the new Amazon service said it will follow largely well-established ways of conducting online auctions. Shoppers will be able to search for specific items, browse through detailed descriptions of ones they might want and then submit bids over the Internet. Payment typically will be by credit card, though some sellers may take personal checks. Auctions will be won by the highest bidders before the auction deadline arrives. In a new twist, though, Amazon will offer customers what it is calling a "guarantee" against fraud by sellers. Mr. Bezos said Amazon will reimburse customers their costs on purchases as much as $250, if they can establish that they paid for an item and say they didn't receive it or were victims of misrepresentation. Existing online-auction companies offer various forms of insurance or guarantees against smaller losses, but generally require more rigorous proof of fraud. For Amazon, the new service could be an attractive source of additional revenue. The company is one of the most widely visited electronic-commerce sites, having attracted nearly eight million customers to date. That gives Amazon the market clout to charge sellers and business partners for the privilege of appearing on its site -- both as a per-listing fee and as a small percentage of each transaction. eBay, San Jose, Calif., which to date has been the leading person-to-person online auction house, charges a seller's commission of 1.25% to 5% of the total transaction amount, depending on the size of the sale. eBay has more than two million registered users and offers about 1.8 million items for sale each day, in categories ranging from Furbys to art prints. eBay officials didn't return calls seeking comment on Amazon's action. Another Internet-auction company, Onsale, buys its own inventory of computers, sporting goods and other equipment and then offers them for sale. Its CEO, Jerry Kaplan, said Sunday that he believes the Amazon initiative is more of a direct challenge to eBay than to his Menlo Park, Calif., company's way of doing business.