Saturday, June 12, 2010

An early Amazon.com customer

I was waxing nostalgic today and thinking about how long I've had the Internet. I had it set up in my house in Mankato in 1994, and I'm guessing I was one of a few who had a home connection. I remember when Amazon.com was just a start-up, selling hard-to-find books. I must have bought my first book from them in 1995 or 1996. It was Robert Fisk's PITY THE NATION.

Later that year, in December, I received a package in the mail from Amazon. I hadn't ordered anything, so I was curious. I opened it and found a coffee travel mug. It came with a note that said something like, "Thank you for being an Amazon.com customer. Please accept this gift in appreciation." I thought that was very cool. Now I see what Amazon has done and how they'd go bankrupt if they sent a holiday gift to every customer these days! It makes me wonder how many customers they had that year, that each one of us could receive a gift. Any guesses?

I still have that mug. It's a prized possession.

1 comment:

Kara B said...

That's cool. I definitely bought stuff from amazon back when they were just a bookstore, but not so long ago that I got a free mug out of the deal! Actually, I'm trying to remember what my first Internet purchase was. Seems like it should have been momentous, stepping into this huge cultural shift. But at the time, of course, it wasn't a big deal at all.