its third subsidiary, Amazon France,
with books, music, DVDs and videos - software and video games
were added later, in June 2001 - and a 48-hour delivery. At the
time, online sales represented only 0.5% of the book market in
France, against 5.4% in the United States.

The opening of Amazon France was announced at the last minute,
on August 23, 2000, after months of secrecy surrounding the
next "American cultural invasion". The French subsidiary opened
in Guyancourt, in the suburbs of Paris, with 100 employees -
some of them trained in the U.S. headquarters in Seattle - for
administration, technical services, and marketing. The
distribution service opened in Boigny-sur-Bionne, near Orleans,
a town in the south of Paris. The customer service landed in
The Hague, Netherlands, because Amazon was expecting to broaden
its European network.

Amazon France had four competitors: Fnac.com, Alapage,
Chapitre.com, and BOL.fr.

Fnac.com was the online branch of Fnac, a network of
"traditional" bookstores spread throughout France and other
European countries, and run by the group Pinault-Printemps-
Redoute.

Alapage was an online bookstore founded in 1996 by Patrice
Magnard, before being bought by France Telecom in September
1999. Alapage became a subsidiary of Wanadoo, the internet
service provider of France Telecom, in July 2000.

Chapitre.com was an independent online bookstore, created in
1997 by Juan Pirlot de Corbion.

BOL.fr was the French subsidiary of BOL.com (BOL: Bertelsmann
On Line), launched in August 1999 by Bertelsmann, a German
media giant, in partnership with Vivendi, a French
multinational company.

Unlike their counterparts in the U.S. and in U.K., where book
prices were free, French online bookstores couldn't offer
significant bargains. A French law - the Lang law - regulated
prices. (Jacques Lang was the ministry of culture who fathered
the law to protect independent bookstores.) The 5% discount
allowed by law for both traditional and online bookstores was
offering little latitude to Amazon.fr, Fnac.com, and the likes,
who were nevertheless optimistic about the prospects offered by
the French-language international market. A significant number
of orders was already coming from abroad, with 10% of orders
for Fnac.com as early as 1997.

Interviewed by AFP (Agence France-Presse) on the Lang Law and
the meager 5% discount allowed for book prices, Denis Terrien,
president of Amazon France (until May 20