Amazon

So we have integrated operations in both the UK and Germany. Both of those groups represent our fastest growing businesses.

And we're developing a cluster strategy in Europe where we take our UK mother ship and we'll serve surrounding countries like Ireland and Scandinavia, and then out of Germany we'll serve Austria, Switzerland and the eastern part of Europe. And you'll continue to see us develop clusters and expand in Europe and in fact world-wide as time goes on.

When a shipment crosses a border, NetWorks Transport will be used, along with speciality software that calculates the costs of tariffs and taxes, to arrive at the net landed cost of a particular item. Calculating net landed cost, or total cost of shipping, has been a problem for Amazon.com, says Stacie Kilgore, a senior analyst with Forrester Research, particularly for orders that flow from Europe to the United States. Because net landed cost is not reflected in the prices overseas customers see when they shop on Amazon.com's U.S. Web site, it results in sticker shock when the products actually arrive. According to Kilgore, up