Photos: Inside Amazon.co.uk

Enter the e-tailer...

Amazon's latest venture sees the company offering rental DVDs. The service was launched in December 2004 and the company remains confident it is gathering momentum in a crowded marketplace - aided by some competitive price cutting around its offer.

If you think it sounds odd that the company should have launched the service in December, when it was at its busiest, then you'd be right. Chris Bateman, senior operations manager at Amazon.co.uk, admitted to silicon.com that it had originally been planned for September.

"But you know how it works," he said. "September became October, became November, became December."