Amazon.com Launches Amazon.co.jp

Posted on November 2, 2000

Online retailer Amazon.com has launched Amazon.co.jp, a Japanese-language site, to serve Japan and Japanese-language speakers. Amazon.co.jp enters Japan's market with an online bookstore, offering more than 1.7 million Japanese and English-language titles and extensive editorial content. Japan is Amazon.com's largest export market, with 193,000 customers and annualized sales of US$34 million.

``We're grateful to the tens of thousands of Japanese who have shopped at Amazon.com for the past five years,'' said Bezos. ``With the launch of Amazon.co.jp, we can now make our customer-centric shopping experience -- great service, selection and convenience -- available to everyone looking for popular or hard-to-find Japanese language books.''

Amazon.co.jp is Amazon's first Asian-language site and its fourth international one. In developing its Unicode-enabled platform for the Japanese language site, Amazon.com worked with U.S.-based Basis Technology, a provider of software internationalization services, with expertise in Asian language information processing.

Amazon's operations in Japan include offices in Tokyo, a distribution center in Ichikawa, Chiba prefecture, and a customer service center in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Amazon's other international sites include the French-language Amazon.fr, launched Aug. 31 of this year, the German-language Amazon.de, and Amazon.co.uk.