Posted October 16, 200816 yr Robbie Williams is the top-selling UK music act of all time on Amazon The Sun http://www.xtraordinarypeople.com/media/images/celebrity/full/Robbie-Williams.jpg -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WITH just one click of a mouse ten years ago today, online giant Amazon.co.uk clocked up its first sale in Britain. As the British arm of the hit website celebrates its first decade, millions of us now rely on it to on it to avoid High Street queues. Most people with access to the internet have at some point ordered something from the company, which is renowned for its cut-price books, CDs and DVDs and regarded as a saviour for shoppers on the hunt for last-minute gifts. The UK site was formerly known as Bookpages.co.uk but became Britain’s largest online-only retailer when Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took it over and started selling books as Amazon.co.uk on October 15, 1998. The takeover followed the success of American parent site Amazon.com, which launched in 1995 and was originally based in Bezos’s GARAGE in Seattle. Amazon is now a global retail monster — and a great deal of its success is down to a certain boy wizard. Harry Potter has dominated the sales charts of books ever since the UK site started. In its first year, The Prisoner Of Azkaban was Amazon.co.uk’s best-selling book. The following year, The Goblet Of Fire topped the chart. The Order Of The Phoenix was its biggest-selling book of 2003 and The Half-Blood Prince was No1 in 2005 — and remain’s the company’s most popular title. In July 2007, Amazon launched its biggest ever global book-shifting operation, when TWO MILLION pre-ordered copies of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows were delivered around the world in a single day. Alongside the various Harry Potter titles in the top ten sellers, Nintendo’s Wii games console is the fourth most sought-after item. The first Pirates Of The Caribbean movie is at No6 while, rather boringly, a 2GB SanDisk memory card is at No7. Coldplay’s 2005 hit X&Y is the only album to make it into the site’s all-time top ten products at No8. Robbie Williams is the top-selling UK music act of all time on Amazon.co.uk, followed by Coldplay and The Beatles. Madonna is the biggest-selling female artist. Next after X&Y in the album stakes are Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black, Eyes Open by Snow Patrol and Employment by Kaiser Chiefs. Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training on the Nintendo DS is the website’s biggest-selling computer or console game. Its busiest day was December 10 last year, when more than 950,000 items were bought at a rate of 11 orders every second. The biggest seller on that day was the movie The Bourne Ultimatum on DVD. Amazon.co.uk ships orders from four colossal “fulfilment centres” across Britain. The daddy of them all is its 800,000 sq ft base in Swansea Bay, South Wales. There are also huge plants at Marston Gate, near Milton Keynes, Gourock, in Inverclyde, and at Glenrothes, Fife. Worldwide, Amazon websites now claim to sell almost everything apart from groceries. Goods and services range from DVD rental and baby clothes to wedding lists, jewellery and garden furniture. And while High Street stores suffer, Amazon has yet to feel the bite of the credit crunch. Last year, it sold £12BILLION of goods around the world — 35 per cent up on the previous year. Globally, Amazon employs 18,400 people and bosses expect to take on an extra 1,000 people in the UK in the run-up to Christmas to deal with the surge of people buying gifts online. The company estimate that every year, 81MILLION people around the world buy something on Amazon. Brian McBride, managing director of Amazon.co.uk, said: “It has been quite a decade for Amazon in the UK. “From our start as a bookshop, we are now on to our 14th category with the launch of health and beauty, and our fourth distribution centre in Swansea, which is shipping millions of products. “We are also preparing for our first digital service with a move into digital music.” But the site has not forgotten its debt to Harry Potter author JK Rowling. Amazon paid £1.95million to charity for one of seven original hand-written copies of the author’s Tales Of Beedle The Bard. And McBride concedes: “Our millions of customers have made this all possible but there’s definitely one person we couldn’t have done it without — Harry Potter.” thanks to PR
October 16, 200816 yr Author What an achivement :o Well done Rob. I have to say I am shocked with this news as I would've never though he was that popular on amazon :o
October 17, 200816 yr :o before Coldplay and The Beatles??? :o that's great news Good to know Snow Patrol are also popular :wub:
October 18, 200816 yr I tend to buy all my Robbie CDs from Amazon. That'll be why.... :lol: :rolleyes: Must've spent a friggin fortune. :P
October 18, 200816 yr I tend to buy all my Robbie CDs from Amazon. That'll be why.... :lol: :rolleyes: Must've spent a friggin fortune. :P Same here.... :)
October 18, 200816 yr Amazon has only been up and running 10 years though. I'm absolutely certain more people will have bought Robbie CDs in the last 10 years than will have bought Beatles CDs. ^_^
October 18, 200816 yr I never bought a Beatles CD.... ...I do not like them.... :mellow: I'm with you on that one Scorps :cheer:
October 18, 200816 yr :o I've got loads of Beatles CDs ^_^ I guess you use them as teapot stands.... <_< might improve Macca's face....
October 18, 200816 yr I guess you use them as teapot stands.... <_< might improve Macca's face.... :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
October 18, 200816 yr I never bought a Beatles CD.... ...I do not like them.... :mellow: :lol: :lol: :lol: The Beatles don't sound ace on CD's but on LP's they do sound heavenly! :)
October 18, 200816 yr The Beatles wrote a lot of fantastic tunes. And they were Number 1 when I popped into this World so I have a special fondness for them. :wub:
October 18, 200816 yr Cilla Black was number one when I popped into this world ^_^ I have all her albums
