The e-commerce market continually gets bigger and bigger every year. Amazon.com is no exception to this growing market. In 1998, its sales increased by 313% from $148 million in 1997 to $610 million in 1998. The growth of such a market will continue for years to come, as long as each e-commerce site can accommodate the ever increasing traffic flow of people and rely on third parties to keep the world wide web operational. The number of cumulative customer accounts grew from 1.5 million in 1997 to 6.2 million by the end of 1998, which translates into an increase of over 300%. A major product expansion, the music store that amazon.com created, was the leading online music retailer in the first quarter that it was operational. With the addition of the online music store came the idea for a video store and in only six weeks they became the leading online video seller. The final but largest expansion of Amazon.com came in the form of expanding globally. Germany under amazon.de and the United Kingdom under amazon.co.uk had fourth quarter sales in 1998 that nearly quadrupled over the third quarter (when the technology was introduced to Germany and the United Kingdom). The fourth quarter results made amazon.de and amazon.co.uk the leading online bookseller in the market. Another statistic worth noting is that 25% of the entire businesses sales in the fourth quarter of 1998 were derived from amazon.de, amazon.co.uk and video, music and gift sales on amazon.com, which are all very new businesses. With the expansion of Amazon.com into many new markets, the employee base grew from 600 to over 2100 and distribution centers were opened in the United Kingdom and Germany. Amazon.com is definitely fortunate to benefit from a business model that is cash-favored and capital efficient where there is no need for physical stores with inventory. The company's centralized distribution model has allowed them to bring the business to a billion dollar sales rat...
