Anyone who has been on the Internet knows about Amazon.com. Just as the planet Pluto was entering the expansive sign of Sagittarius, going global was on every e-tailer’s mind. Launched in 1995 as an Internet bookseller, Amazon.com has become the largest Internet retailer in the whole wide world. But the question now is whether or not this amazing virtual retail store can hold on to its fame and fortune. The holiday season has come and gone and many are wondering if earth’s biggest bookstore can make it!

Capricorn Jeff Bezos formed Amazon.com out of an Internet research project for hedge fund D.E. Shaw. Bezos realized that book sales would be a perfect fit with e-commerce because book distributors already kept meticulous electronic lists. He presented the idea to Shaw. The company passed on the idea, but Bezos ran with it, as he had always wanted to be an entrepreneur.

Quick Rise to the Top

Amazon’s website was established in July 1995, and in 1996, Bezos realized the company was growing faster than he had imagined. The website was attracting more than 2,000 visitors a day, which in 1996 was terrific! By 1997, that number had increased more than twenty times. 1995 sales were over a half-million dollars and grew to $147 million in 1997. The company went public on May 15, 1997, at 9:30 am, trading on the New York Stock Exchange floor under the Sun sign of Taurus at $18 a share. By 1999, the stock was selling for more than $100 a share. In the Amazon IPO chart, the Moon in the distribution sign of Virgo trines the communications and book planet Mercury in Taurus, which is excellent for selling books to the public.

It’s been said that a person’s peak comes when they get published or become famous. Time magazine named Bezos its “Person of the Year” in December 1999, touting him as the “king of cybercommerce.” Bezos and his team had proved that e-commerce could be successful on the Web. The world viewed Amazon.com as a powerful company in a new era. After all, no bricks-and-mortar company had ever grown this fast and produced sales at this magnitude. The transiting North Node, a point of destiny, was trine Amazon’s Pluto, or power and influence, during this time.

What Goes Up Must Come Down

In the half-decade since its formation, Amazon.com has gone from a venture capital-funded startup in CEO Jeff Bezos' garage to a bellwether Internet stock and the standard by which other companies' online sales efforts are judged. But fast global reach and economic changes in the marketplace brought a contraction in January 2000 just as a lunar eclipse at 0 degrees Leo occurred in the Amazon IPO chart’s First House (the Ascendant and First House show how people perceive the company). This suggests changes in its image and the company as it operates. The company immediately announced its first job layoffs, and the stock started its dramatic (Leo) decline. Within seven weeks of its peak in December 1999, it plummeted 40 percent. Eclipses can be associated with above average stock declines, especially when they conjunct a natal position.

In May 2000, the famous twenty-year Jupiter-Saturn conjunction at 23 degrees Taurus (associated with resources of time, employees and money) hit the Amazon.com IPO chart’s natal Sun. This produced a contraction trend that has called for a re-evaluation of priorities and new strategies to be implemented. Trade union issues surfaced for the first time also during this period.

Saturn, planet of restriction and accountablity, returns and turns stationary direct on the IPO Sun in late January 2001. Saturn is already within orb of the natal Sun, and accountability issues are being raised again. A union organizer turned up the heat on Amazon.com recently, launching a campaign they say is aimed at improving wages and working conditions (Saturn) at Amazon's distribution centers globally.

Jeff Bezos’ philosophy is that “everyone is an owner,” referring to Amazon's stock-ownership program. But with Amazon shares trading at less than half of the company's highs, union organizers refer to Amazon's stock-purchase plan as a "stock scam" and are demanding (Saturn) higher wages. The organizers are also complaining about forced overtime, a mandate to work on Thanksgiving and Christmas and what they say are costly family benefits. Do you see where the Leo eclipse is still working here to change the image of the company?

Amazon.com is being targeted because of the company's stature as a model for online retailing. Transiting Saturn, which symbolizes models and mentors, is still on Amazon’s Sun, or core self. Jeff Bezos has a choice between adopting a wait-and-see attitude to determine whether these workers will force him to do the right thing, or immediately initiate changes for the future. It appears that however Amazon.com goes, it will set precedence for the e-tailing industry.