The company’s financial position has improved since 2000. Most of the improvement is due to increases in sales—which is good. But, those sales increased largely by selling products for other firms, and from one more twist. Amazon no longer discounts most of the books that it sells. In fact, it is generally more expensive to purchase books from Amazon than to buy them from your local bookstore. For competitive online pricing, check www.campusi.com, which searches multiple Web sites for the best price, but the selection might not be as large.
Another source of increased sales is the international market (largely Britain, Eu-rope and Japan). Notice in the table that media sales (books, audio, and movies) are higher in the International market than in North America. More products are sold in North Amer-ica, but clearly the growth path is the international market.