The first online holiday shopping spree – Christmas 1998 – helped Amazon.com reap its first $1 billion in annual sales. Amazon.com led all e-retailers in 2002 with $3.1 billion in sales.
Although in "Internet time" these dates may seem like ancient history, Amazon.com paved the way for many of the e-commerce businesses today. Its huge popularity and financial success inspired many businesses to launch their own e-commerce sites. Of course they modeled the sites after Amazon.com — making it the premier e-commerce pioneer.
