Sky's the limit for growing Amazon
Twenty years ago Jeff Bezos quit his high flying Wall Street job to run an online bookshop from his garage in Seattle. It's name? Amazon.
Fast-forward two decades and Amazon has completely transformed the way in which we shop and is up there with McDonalds and Coca-Cola as a global mega-brand.
The company started with just two members of staff, including Bezos' wife MacKenzie. According to former employees there was little stock in the early days, with books bought from distributors as and when customers ordered them.
Today its global operation employs around 100,000 people, with more than 278 million customer accounts worldwide.
Bezo's vision, back in 1995 was to create a company that 'sold everything'. Originally named 'Cadabra' as in 'abracadabra' Bezos changed the name after it was often misheard as 'cadaver'.
He chose Amazon to reflect his ambitions – Amazon.com launched with the tagline 'Earth's biggest book store' – and also to ensure the site was up at the top in alphabetical listings.
The first book purchased from the site was Douglas Hofstadter's 'Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought' and from the moment on there was no looking back.
Twenty years on the company has not only survived the pressures which saw many fellow internet start-ups dissolve, but it embraced them and has grown from strength to strength.
From books it diversified into selling CDs and videos and later toys and clothes.
The surface area of Amazons 96 warehouses is equal to the size of 10,000 Olympic swimming pools.
Amazon has more than 278 million customer accounts through the world
In 2014 Amazon accounted for 40 per cent of books sold in the world
There are more than 100 million different items on Amazon
Amazons annual sales, £59 billion, are larger than the GDPs of half of the worlds countries
Amazon has bases across the world, including China and Costa Rica
As well as transforming the world of e-commerce The Economist also credited Amazon.com with making online shopping feel safe, opening the door for everyone else.
"Typing your credit card into a web browser was once considered a sign of insanity until Amazon showed how easy and safe buying things online could be," according to an article posted in 2014 on the 20th anniversary of the retailer's incorporation. Once people bought a book, they tried other things." Amazon also introduced customer reviews to sit alongside its products. Previously unheard of, it is now commonplace.
Rugeley in Staffordshire is home to the online retail giant's third biggest warehouse in the UK, employing more than 1,000 people.
It is one of the crown jewels of Staffordshire's impressive business portfolio but that is just a drop in the river of its world-wide presence.
And – ever on the move – the company is now delving into other lucrative markets. Just last week bosses announced the major coup of signing much sought after Top Gear trio Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May to front a new exclusive TV show to be screened on Amazon's online streaming service, which is going head to head with the likes of Netflix.
And the online retail giant has also approached the Government about trialling a delivery service using drones in the UK, with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US approving Amazon's plan to begin testing drones for online deliveries, earlier this year. The project, called Amazon Prime Air, was first revealed in a YouTube video in late 2013. Keeping up with Amazon's latest developments, new launches and additions is an almost impossible task. Its recent company history is listed in months rather than years.
But the focus on the business is still the ever-burgeoning online retail market which is good news for staff at 'fulfilment centres' like the one in Rugeley.
The Tower Business Park site opened in 2011 originally employing around 900 people but last year it announced that 330 temporary posts were being made permanent boosting the overall roster to more than 1,200.
But at peak times such as Christmas that number can more than double as it looks to meet spikes in demand. The 2014 festive season saw an extra 1,500 pairs of hands brought in to meet the rush. And as recent as June Amazon announced it was creating 100 new temporary positions.
The Rugeley depot has also became the UK's first to open its doors and provide guided tours to visitors.
Cedric Ross, senior manager of fulfilment at Amazon in the US flew over for the launch and said: "I think it is important for out associates, and the general public, to be able to share in what we do here.
"Many people drive past places like this in their cars but may not necessarily know what is going on inside.
"With these tours, we can actually show people what happens inside our buildings, from start to finish."
Amazon launched its subscription-based Prime service – delivering goods to people's homes within 24 hours – in 2007 and to mark its 20th anniversary held its first ever 'Prime Day', which on July 15 gave its members access to thousands of knock-down discounts.
Workers at Rugeley played their part in what proved to be a stunning success for the firm smashing Black Friday records with around 400 items sold per second.
If all the PlayStation 4s sold during the one-day only promotion were stacked on top of each other they would be seven times taller than Big Ben.
Today, 20 years after selling his first book, Bezos, a father-of-four, has an estimated fortune of £20 billion and claims he still 'dances into the office' each day.
As for the future – the sky is the limit.
