Amazon.com

Real world article

(written from a production point of view)

Amazon.com is the world's largest online retailer and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington, USA. It was founded on 5 July 1994 by Jeff Bezos, an avid fan of the Star Trek who had a brief cameo in Star Trek Beyond. Initially starting out as a book seller, the retailer's assortment quickly expanded to include almost all other conceivable consumer merchandise as well, including those stemming from the Star Trek franchise, in the process becoming an important distribution partner for the franchise, if not the most important one where its merchandise – in both physical and digital manifestations in regard to the print, and home media entertainment formats – is concerned.

While originally founded as an online retailer, Amazon has, after a tentative start, rapidly evolved into a multi-media conglomerate whose many holdings include, among others, Amazon Studios, Amazon Prime, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (acquired in late May 2021), and the online publisher CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, which has released several original Star Trek-related book titles, as has another Amazon holding, 47North, a more traditional book publisher. While still primarily an online retail company, Amazon.com, Inc. is presently also the conglomerate holding company.

Retailer exclusive home video releases[]

Because of its importance to the franchise, especially for its worldwide reach, Amazon.com is increasingly given – or has enforced – the right to release so-called "retailer exclusive" home media entertainment formats, thereby joining traditional chain store retailers such as Best Buy or Walmart, which already had been licensed to release such exclusives previously, though for the North-American home market only contrary to Amazon's worldwide coverage.

No details on the financial arrangements between franchise and any of the respective retailers have ever been disclosed, but it is safe to assume that the "retailer exclusive" format entails a larger margin cut for the retailer involved over the regular releases – and thus a smaller one for the franchise and/or manufacturer.

Star Trek: The Original Series[]

Variant packaging of the Star Trek: The Original Series - Seasons 1-3 DVD release were retailed as limited exclusives through the German Amazon.de and the French Amazon.fr in November 2005. The German set came with a Starfleet arrowhead insignia shaped display shelf, whereas the French one came in a black hard plastic Starfleet-style "records bin". Four years later, in July 2009, the Japanese Amazon.co.jp released the same set as a limited "Galaxy Box" edition and came packaged with a full scale tricorder toy.

The German and French editions rank to date among the earliest known Amazon Star Trek exclusives, along with the below-mentioned Japanese ones.

Prime universe films[]

In December 2005 the Japanese Amazon.co.jp retailed a limited exclusive of the Star Trek - The Original Crew Movie Collection (Special Edition) DVD release, which consisted of a box featuring a die-cast model of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) on top of it. It was reissued in July of the following year in a smaller production run, but now featuring a smaller scaled pewter model of the refit-USS Enterprise (NCC-1701).

Released in November 2013, the Star Trek I-X - Limited Collector's Edition, collecting the first ten remastered versions of the Star Trek films, was exclusively retailed through the British Amazon.co.uk and the German Amazon.de, with its total numbered production run limited to five thousand copies. Essentially a "deluxe" version of the previously-released regular Star Trek: Stardate Collection Blu-ray version, the release had included as extras a 112-page full-color photo book containing original studio production manuals and behind the scenes stills, film cells, three storyboards, a fabric Federation badge, and a blueprint of the USS Enterprise-D.

In the same year, the Japanese Amazon released an exclusive Stardate Collection, a five hundred copy limited "Premium Edition" likewise containing extra contents exclusive to that release, which consisted of a film cell from each of the first ten films and a Star Trek-themed USB flash drive with storyboards and posters.

Star Trek[]

Amazon.com exclusively retailed a Blu-ray version of Star Trek that contained a QMx model of the USS Enterprise in 2009. The metal model was limited to an edition of 5,000 pieces.

The German Amazon.de exclusively retailed a November 2009 two-disc Star Trek (Special Edition) DVD release of Star Trek that contained a model of the Enterprise, which, when assembled, served as a disc holder. This edition was geo-restricted to German and Dutch (through the now defunct Free Record Shop retail chain store) speaking European countries only – though the same product was, in a variant packaging, also available as "retailer exclusives" in Canada through Best Buy and in the USA through Target (as were their Blu-ray counterparts for that matter).

Star Trek Into Darkness[]

STID 3D Amazon phaser giftset — Amazon-exclusives of the *Star Trek Into Darkness* Blu-ray (3D) set

In 2013, Amazon.com, the German Amazon.de and the French Amazon.fr carried a 3D Blu-ray Disc gift set edition of Star Trek Into Darkness that contained a QMx phaser replica as a retailer exclusive. The German and French releases differed from the American one in that it had its discs mounted in a "SteelBook^®" casing, for each country a different one and a format particularly popular in Germany (see below). The Italian Amazon.it carried the retailer exclusive also, though theirs only contained the Blu-ray version of the film but lacked the 3D variant, whereas the Australian one contained the Star Trek/Star Trek Into Darkness Blu-ray two-film combo release instead of the single-film 3D version. The latter incidentally, was not licensed to Australian Amazon.com.au (simply because it was not operational yet, only becoming so in December 2017 [1]), but rather to local chainstore retailer JB Hi-Fi. [2]

Star Trek Beyond[]

A number of Amazon-exclusive editions of the home video release of Star Trek Beyond included a QMx "Mini Masters" seven-inch replica of the USS Franklin or a three-pack of Snapco miniature starships. These sets were released in November 2016.

Limited "SteelBook^®" Editions[]

A "SteelBook^®" edition, on occasion also referred to as "tin can" or "metalpack", concerns an optical disc release packaged in a metallic foldout (hence the "book" in SteelBook) casing, typically in a limited, one-time only production run at a higher price-point – oftentimes as a retailer exclusive – in contrast to the regular plastic snapcases, though contents are usually the same for both variants. While not as elaborate as the above featured exclusives, a segment of the collector scene values these for its perceived cachet, and is a format utilized in many countries, Germany in particular, where the format is especially popular. [3] Amazon is but one of the many retailers which regularly employs the format as an exclusive. It was with Into Darkness that the franchise went truly overboard with the number of SteelBook releases in 2013, as a myriad of them were released in a variety that bewildered (SteelBook) fans. [4] It was only afterwards that the variety of these at least was dialed back to a more manageable selection.

A staple in the DVD-era, the SteelBook format release became exclusively employed for the H(igh)D(efinition) format releases, with the advent of the Blu-ray Disc in the latter half of the 2000s.

The 2018 Star Trek: Discovery Season One "Limited SteelBook Edition" was not limited to Amazon.com alone, as this particular release was carried by Best Buy as well, whereas it was in Europe also carried by the UK Zavvi, the French FNAC, and the German MediaMarkt chain store retailers. This has applied to every single other Kurtzman-era Star Trek home video format release that has followed suit since the first Discovery release, save Star Trek: Short Treks, LD Season 2 Blu-ray, and LD Season 3 Blu-ray – though disappointing sales numbers are the most obvious suspects.