Amazon, Online Retailer | featured news

2012 was a good year for Amazon. Not only has the company announced that the Kindle Fire HD was the #1 best-selling, most gifted, and most wished for product on Amazon, but for the eighth consecutive year, the company ranks #1 in customer satisfaction during the holiday shopping season...

Amazon prides itself on unraveling the established order. This fall, signs of Amazon-inspired disruption are everywhere. There is the slow-motion crackup of electronics showroom Best Buy. There is Amazon’s rumored entry into the wine business, which is already agitating competitors. And there is the merger of Random House and Penguin, an effort to create a mega-publisher sufficiently hefty to negotiate with the retailer on equal terms.

Amazon launched its Black Friday deals store, joining its rivals who are looking to get an early start on attracting holiday shoppers.

Online retailer Amazon.com has tried to become all things to all consumers, but in California, it is about to take on a role it has fought against for years: tax collector.

Amazon says buyers of its new Kindle Fire HD tablet will get the option to turn off the advertisements that appear on its standby screen for $15. The online retailer showed off the tablet last week, and said there would be no option to turn off the ads. That was a departure from Amazon's previous policies. It has shipped Kindle e-readers with "Special Offers" ads on the standby screen, but users could pay to have them turned off.

Amazon.com quenched the Kindle Fire on Thursday, saying its first tablet computer is now "sold out." The Internet retailer has a major press conference scheduled for next Thursday in Santa Monica, California. It's widely expected to reveal a new model of the Fire there, so the announcement that the first model is "sold out" suggests that Amazon halted production a while ago to retool for a new model.

The company reported net income of $7 million, or 1 cent a share, on sales of $12.8 billion. It was less profit than analysts had estimated, but the revenue was in line with forecasts.

Thousands of small merchants depend on Amazon.com to reach customers who otherwise wouldn't know they exist. But some complain that Amazon itself often spots their popular products and then starts muscling in.

The online retailer is now using its vast resources to become a major seller of high-end clothing.

Although headquartered in State, Amazon already collects sales tax in Kansas, Kentucky, , North Dakota and . What's more, here's a coming his list where and when you'll be taxed on Amazon purchases: Texas, July 2012 California, September 2012 Virginia, September 2013 Indiana, January 2014 Nevada, January 2014 Tennessee, January 2014 South Carolina, January 2016 ...