Chances are, you have shopped on Amazon.com (NYSE: AMZN), the online shopping experience founded in 1994.  One of the pioneers in e-commerce, Amazon.com, originally an online bookstore, eventually expanded to music and movies and now sells electronics, food, furniture, toys and more.   In addition, it powers several e-commerce sites, including the Bebe, Target and Benefit cosmetics.  It also runs the IMDB (Internet Movie Database) site, as well as a digital music download store in the US.

In its 15 years of operation, not only did Amazon expanded beyond books, it has also expanded geograpgically beyond its US borders, operating separate websites in Canada, France, the United Kingdom and many other countries and have their own warehouses.  The number of items and types of merchandise available varies from country to country.  In Canada, there had been some issues due to restrictions on foreign book-sellers.  Amazon.com being foreign owned cannot operate a server nor call centres in Canada, making it more difficult to compete with Canadian booksellers.   Amazon has also gone through a number of legal issues, including a trademark case in the late 90s when a Minneapolis-based bookstore sued them.  The case was settled out-of-court. 

Amazon not only sells books, but produces them as well.  It acquired BookSurge, a print-on-demand company for self-publishing.  This allows writers to control their inventory as the books are printed as they’re ordered.  Of course, using this type of publishing system can be expensive, depending on the package one uses.  Prices range from $799 for a basic package (includes 10 books)  up to just under $6,000 (25 books) for BookSurge’s “Total Design Freedom” packages.  Although these  prices include all the printing, marketing and ISBN placements, it  can still be very costly for many authors.  Royalties with Amazon run at 35%.  Amazon also operates affiliate programs where bloggers and other website operators can earn money for their sites.

On Tuesday, February 17, Amazon opened at 61.50 and closed at 61.67.  Its 52-week highs and lows were 91.75 and 34.68.