25 Things You Didn't Know About Amazon

25 Things You Didn't Know About Amazon

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Founded in 1994, the online retailer we know best as Amazon was created by CEO Jeff Bezos, who had the vision of creating a “virtual community” where users could purchase books online and interact with each other. Little did we know the domain would transform into the biggest commercial site on the Internet—becoming society’s go-to “everything shop” for all consumer products from apparel to video games. Its explosive market growth throughout the years has even allowed it to enter the consumer electronics sector, shapeshifting the e-reader landscape with its Kindle line. Celebrating its 20th anniversary in business, we dug deep into the company’s history and pulled out some fun, yet wild facts to get you more familiarized with the ecommerce giant. Here is a look at 25 Things You Didn't Know About Amazon.

Bezos wanted to call the company “Cadabra,” but Amazon’s first lawyer convinced him to make the change over the fact it sounded similar to “Cadaver.”

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To assist warehouse workers, Amazon uses robots to help them retrieve items.

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The company owns a patent on 1-click buying that it also licenses to Apple.

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Every Amazon.com employee is required to spend two days of every two years taking calls at the service desk to better understand the importance of customer service.

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That also includes Bezos, who told Bloomberg Business Week: “One call I took many years ago was from a customer who had brought 11 things from 11 sellers—and typed in the wrong shipping address.”

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It wasn’t till the fourth quarter of 2001 when the company turned its first profit, which was six years after its launch.

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The first book ever sold on Amazon.com was Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought—a transaction that took place in Bezos’ Seattle area garage in 1995.

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Bezos, his wife MacKenzie, and third employee Shel Kaphan would have their meetings at a local Barnes & Noble.

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Employees were given permission to engage in “primal screams” to help release stress during the holiday season.

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A programming error present during Amazon's early years let customers trick the company into sending them money.

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Before Google Street View, Amazon launched a search engine called A9.com that created a projected labeled Block View—a service that featured street-level photographs of stores and restaurants listed in their data base.

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Any person can have their book published in the Amazon Kindle store in less than 24 hours after submission.

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On the verge on bankruptcy, Amazon discovered a loophole in the book distributers 10-book buying system that allowed them to order one book they needed and nine copies of an obscure book about lichens, which pretty much kept them in business.

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The original meaning of the smile and arrow design was to suggest “we’re happy to deliver anything, anywhere,” but Amazon.com sent out a press release with a different meaning: "a smile now begins under the a and ends with a dimple under the z, emphasizing that Amazon.com offers anything, from A to Z, that customers may be looking to buy online."

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An Amazon employee supposedly generates 3.2 times more than a Wal-Mart employee.

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In 1999, Bezos decided to launch its own auction site to compete with eBay, which became a huge bust.

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The site once sold a CD-ROM for $2,904,9800,000, but after being processed as a purchased transaction, the buyer received a cancellation notice stating Amazon.com was “unable to complete the order.”

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Employees are supposedly expected to work a minimum of 60-hour weeks.

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The Amazon Kindle was originally code-named “Fiona,” a moniker inspired by the original name from a book called The Diamond Age.

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In an attempt to tone down his explosive attitude, word is Bezos once hired a leadership coach to help approach employees in a much calmer manner.

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Employees are supposedly tracked using GPS tags and have their toilet breaks timed.

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During the company’s early days, a bell would ring every time a purchase was made on the site, leading employees to gather around and see if anyone knew the purchaser.

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Those who receive an invite to become an Amazon Vine reviewer get free stuff from companies to review.

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The turn-around employment rate at Amazon is so insane, former employee Martin Patron claims the company hired, dropped, and then rehired him more than three times—doing it every 12 weeks so they wouldn’t have to provide him full-time benefits.

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Typing in Relentless.com will redirect you to Amazon.com, which is a URL registered back in September 1994 that Bezos kept.

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