Even with postage and packing, this makes it competitive with American chains. The prices are higher than those of book clubs like BOMC and Literary Guild, but there is very much greater choice - and, most important, the choice of buying nothing. As with a traditional bookshop, you can enter its website as often as you like, browse, and leave with an empty cart. It served its millionth customer in August. It is, Bezos likes to say, in its big-bang phase.
Investors have faith in it.
Nor is it clear when it will be. Bezos used to hazard late 1998. But asked by CNN a few weeks ago, he testily refused to make a prediction. Big bang indeed. What little web history there is suggests otherwise.