In the first quarter of 1998, the number of Amazon customer accounts was just over 2 million, an increase of half in just three months and a staggering increase of 564 percent. compared to the previous year, it took Amazon.com 27 months to serve its first million customers and only 6 months to serve the second million. This made Amazon.com the third largest bookseller in the United States. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The company began to expand its scope of influence through the acquisition of three companies, two of which were acquired for Amazon.com's subsequent expansion into Europe. One of the UK's largest online booksellers – The Bookpages, gave Amazon.com access to the UK market, Telebook, Germany's largest online bookseller, served as an entry into its market national. The two companies not only gave Amazon access to new sources of profit in two of the most important countries in Europe, but also gave existing Amazon more resources from around the world. The third new purchase, Internet Movie Database, proved vital to its continued evolution into online video sales. IMD's enormous resources and information were a valuable asset in building Amazon.com's future dominance. Another sensation occurred in 1998 when the company announced that it would also expand into the music industry. Several months before the official opening of its music site, Amazon.com asked its bookstore customers and members of the music profession to help it design the new website. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized article from our expert writers now. In the second quarter of 1998, with a very confident number of customer accounts that left the three million mark well behind and with sales figures for Amazon.com continuing to increase and new products and titles being added, the future looked brilliant. for this young adventure in Internet commerce. With music being part of the business mix on one side and video sales on the other, Jeff seemed to have achieved his goal of invading the online sales market. As Bezos said in his Fortune magazine interview in December 1996: “By the start of the 21st century, there could be two or three major online bookstores. We must be one of them”.