SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 30, 2000--Leading online retailer Amazon.com (Nasdaq:AMZN) (www.amazon.com) today officially opened its new customer service center in The Hague with a ceremony officiated by Dutch State Secretary for Economic Affairs Gerrit Ybema and Amazon.com's Senior Vice President International, Diego Piacentini.
The 103,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art customer service center is in response to Amazon.com's growing global customer base and will serve customers all over Europe who shop at leading European retail sites www.amazon.co.uk and www.amazon.de. The center also will support European customers who shop at www.amazon.com.
"Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, and Amazon.com are ranked the No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3 most popular online shopping sites in Europe, respectively," said Diego Piacentini, Amazon.com's senior vice president international. "We are grateful that so many European customers prefer us, and we intend to continue our deep commitment to Europe."
"This new center reinforces our commitment to customers in Europe," said Bill Price, Amazon.com's vice president of customer service. "It ensures that the growing number of customers in Europe will continue to receive -- in their native languages -- swift and efficient customer service for all their needs. The Hague gives us access to a dedicated, multilingual workforce and strong infrastructure that will help us build Europe's most customer-centric service center."
"We are delighted to welcome Amazon.com to The Hague. Their presence in this region cements the Netherland's reputation as a center of excellence in Internet commerce and strengthens the country's ability to provide a first-class business environment," said Gerrit Ybema, Dutch state secretary for economic affairs. "This is also an excellent opportunity for the region's multilingual, high-tech workforce to contribute to a successful, customer-centric company."
Located at Juliana van Stolberglaan in The Hague, the customer service center will be open from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. initially but is expected to be operational 24 hours a day soon after.
Amazon.com is in the process of staffing the center with 125 customer service representatives who will answer inquiries by e-mail and phone. Interested applicants should be native speakers with strong writing skills in at least one Western European language such as German, French, Swedish, or Danish. Candidates should also be fluent in English. Qualified applicants should e-mail their resumes to eurojobs@amazon.com.
With the addition of the customer service center in The Hague, Amazon.com will have a total of seven such centers: Seattle; Tacoma, Washington; Slough, England; Regensburg, Germany; Grand Forks, North Dakota, and, opening soon, Huntington, West Virginia.
About Amazon.com
Amazon.com (Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries) is the Internet's No. 1 music, No. 1 DVD and video, and No. 1 book retailer. Amazon.com (Nasdaq:AMZN) opened its virtual doors on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection, along with online auctions and free electronic greeting cards. Amazon.com lists more than 18 million unique items in categories including books, CDs, toys, electronics, videos, DVDs, home improvement products, software, and video games. Through Amazon.com zShops, any business or individual can sell virtually anything to Amazon.com's more than 17 million customers, and with Amazon.com Payments, any seller can accept credit card transactions, avoiding the hassles of offline payments. The company also participates in sothebys.amazon.com, the leading auction site for guaranteed art, jewelry, and collectibles, at www.sothebys.amazon.com.
Amazon.com seeks to be the world's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they may want to buy online. Amazon.com's All Product Search scours the Web to help customers find merchandise that is not available at Amazon.com, Amazon.com Auctions, or Amazon.com zShops, making Amazon.com the shopping destination to find anything. Amazon.com Anywhere is the leader in mobile e-commerce, providing access from anywhere in the world to Amazon.com through handheld wireless Internet devices that use the Wireless Application Protocol (www.amazon.com/phone/) and on personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Amazon.com operates two international Web sites: www.amazon.co.uk and www.amazon.de. It also operates the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), the Web's comprehensive and authoritative source of information on more than 220,000 movies and entertainment programs and 800,000 cast and crew members dating from the birth of film in 1892 to 2003.
This announcement contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, Amazon.com's limited operating history, anticipated losses, unpredictability of future revenues, potential fluctuations in quarterly operating results, seasonality, consumer trends, competition, risk of distribution center expansion, risks related to fourth quarter performance, risks of system interruption, management of potential growth, risks related to auction and zShops services, risks related to fraud and Amazon.com Payments, and risks of new business areas, international expansion, business combinations, and strategic alliances. More information about factors that potentially could affect Amazon.com's financial results is included in Amazon.com's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1998 and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for the quarters ended March 31, 1999, June 30, 1999, and September 30, 1999.