SEATTLE--November 30, 1999-Leading online retailer Amazon.com (www.amazon.com; NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced the acquisition of Herndon, Virginia-based Back to Basics Toys, a leading online and catalog retailer specializing in hard-to-find classic toys. A new Back to Basics store within a store opens today at www.amazon.com/toys.
Back to Basics Toys has spent 10 years cultivating a distinctive selection of classic, high-quality toys, as well as a loyal customer base. The two companies, along with their suppliers, plan to work together to offer both Back to Basics and Amazon.com customers the best possible experience in shopping for classic toys, bringing back more classics and introducing new, unique, quality items.
The acquisition adds more classic, high-quality toys to the vast selection of specialties already available at Amazon.com's Toys & Video Games Store, which has been rated No. 1 among online toy stores in a number of surveys. For example, customers will find log-cabin-building sets in original-style canisters; wood creativity theaters; talking Raggedy Ann dolls; wooden multilevel play garages; wooden easels; musical instrument sets; and pedal-drive, ride-on dump trucks and police cars styled after those from the 1930s.
"Since 1988, we've been committed to providing the toys that many of us grew up with, as well as a large selection of new toys that will stand the test of time," said Eric Garfinkel, founder of Back to Basics Toys. "Now customers can have access to these great toys with all the advantages of shopping at Amazon.com."
"We're really pleased to offer customers the Back to Basics selection at Amazon.com Toys," said Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. "We continue to broaden our Toys selection, and toys like these are the ones we remember from our childhood. A lot of children are going to be thrilled this holiday season to enjoy the same toys that their parents did."
Bezos also noted that Amazon.com's Toys & Video Games Store has been rated the best online toy store by MSNBC and Forrester Research's Power Rankings, and named a PC Magazine Editor's Choice.
Back to Basics will continue to operate the company's catalog and to work with toy manufacturers to create a distinctive product selection. Customers can purchase Back to Basics toys either through the Back to Basics catalog at (800) 356-5360 or online at Amazon.com Toys (www.amazon.com/toys).
About Amazon.com, Inc.
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 13 million customers, and with Amazon.com Payments, any seller can accept credit card transactions, avoiding the hassles of offline payments.
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 operates two international Web sites: www.amazon.co.uk in the United Kingdom and www.amazon.de in Germany. Amazon.com also operates PlanetAll (www.planetall.com), a Web-based address book, calendar, and reminder service. It also operates the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com), the Web's comprehensive and authoritative source of information on more than 150,000 movies and entertainment programs and 500,000 cast and crew members dating from the birth of film in 1892 to the present. Amazon.com also operates Amazon.com LiveBid Auctions (http://livebid.amazon.com), the leading provider of live-event auctions on the Internet.
Amazon.com has invested in leading Internet retailers that are improving the lives of customers by making shopping easier and more convenient: drugstore.com, an online retail and information source for health, beauty, wellness, personal care and pharmacy, at www.drugstore.com; Pets.com, the online leader for pet products, expert information, and services, at www.pets.com; HomeGrocer.com, the first fully integrated Internet grocery-shopping and home-delivery service, with operations in Seattle, Portland, Oregon, and Southern California, at www.homegrocer.com; and Gear.com, which offers brand-name sporting goods at prices from 20 to 90 percent off retail, at www.gear.com. Amazon.com also has a minority interest in Della & James, which brings together leading retailers with gift registry, expert advice, and personalized gift suggestions to help everyone give better gifts, at www.della.com.
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, risks 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.