Distributors Earn Top Rating for Providing Exceptional Customer Experiences Though Operational Excellence

SEATTLE, Nov 20, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Amazon.com, Inc. today announced Independent Publishers Group, Macmillan and Random House Publisher Services as Amazon Books Distributors of the Year. The distributors are being recognized for their exemplary work in helping Amazon.com build a world-class customer experience through operational excellence on behalf of their client publishers.

"Independent Publishers Group, Macmillan and Random House Publisher Services are excellent examples of what collaboration and innovation can do to help us offer customers a great experience," said Russell Grandinetti, vice president of books for Amazon.com. "By working together, we're able to improve the rate at which their books are in stock on Amazon, lower prices through lowering operational costs and help customers find, discover and buy great books through programs such as Search Inside the Book, Kindle and print-on-demand. We're proud to work with such great distributors on behalf of their client publishers."

Important criteria considered for Distributor of the Year include:

-- The shortest and most consistent receive lead times to make tens of thousands of books available to ship within 24 hours to Amazon.com customers.

-- Actively growing the number of books available in digital format to Amazon Kindle customers.

-- Leveraging print-on-demand technology to make their books perpetually in stock and available for faster shipment by printing them when a customer places an order on Amazon.com.

-- Providing high-quality and authoritative ONIX data that helps Amazon.com customers easily find and discover their books.

-- Consistently strong participation in Amazon.com's Search Inside the Book feature, which grows sales by allowing Amazon customers to find and discover their books by searching within the content of those titles.

-- Note that this recognition applies to publisher distribution and not books wholesalers.

"The exchange of ideas and excellent communication between Amazon and IPG, as well as the high standards Amazon sets for data quality and throughout the supply chain, has helped IPG become a better company overall. This recognition by Amazon is a testament to the fantastic team of people we have here and at Amazon, doing everything possible to maximize the sales on each of our titles," said Mark Suchomel, president of Independent Publishers Group.

"Working with Amazon has made us a better and more efficient distribution partner. We are thrilled to receive this recognition," said Alison Lazarus, president of Macmillan sales.

"We appreciate Amazon's recognition of the collaborative and successful efforts we have made on behalf of our clients' titles. We look forward to our continued work with the terrific Amazon team in bringing these great publishing programs to the consumer," said Jeff Abraham, president of Random House Publisher Services.

About Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, opened on the World Wide Web in July 1995 and today offers Earth's Biggest Selection. Amazon.com, Inc. seeks to be Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices. Amazon.com and other sellers offer millions of unique new, refurbished and used items in categories such as books, movies, music & games, digital downloads, electronics & computers, home & garden, toys, kids & baby, grocery, apparel, shoes & jewelry, health & beauty, sports & outdoors, and tools, auto & industrial.

Amazon Web Services provides Amazon's developer customers with access to in-the-cloud infrastructure services based on Amazon's own back-end technology platform, whichdevelopers can use to enable virtually any type of business. Examples of the services offered by Amazon Web Services are Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), Amazon SimpleDB, Amazon Simple Queue Service (Amazon SQS), Amazon Flexible Payments Service (Amazon FPS), and Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Amazon and its affiliates operate websites, including www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.co.jp, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.ca, and the Joyo Amazon websites at www.joyo.cn and www.amazon.cn.

As used herein, "Amazon.com," "we," "our" and similar terms include Amazon.com, Inc., and its subsidiaries, unless the context indicates otherwise.

Forward-Looking Statements

This announcement contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Actual results may differ significantly from management's expectations. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that include, among others, risks related to competition, management of growth, new products, services and technologies, potential fluctuations in operating results, international expansion, outcomes of legal proceedings and claims, fulfillment center optimization, seasonality, commercial agreements, acquisitions and strategic transactions, foreign exchange rates, system interruption, significant amount of indebtedness, inventory, government regulation and taxation, payments and fraud. 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, 2007, and subsequent filings.

SOURCE: Amazon.com, Inc.

Amazon.com, Inc.
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