Chaos.com was an Australian

online retailer Online shopping is a form of electronic commerce which allows consumers to directly buy goods or services from a seller over the Internet using a web browser or a mobile app. Consumers find a product of interest by visiting the website of the r ...

based in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, that sold CDs, DVDs, Games, Books and Music Downloads over the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. Similar to

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential econo ...

, Chaos.com shipped to all countries around the world. The website was founded in Sydney, Australia by its CEO Rob Appel in 1995, it was the first Australian retailer to sell music over the Internet.

History

Established in 1995 by Rob Appel under the name Chaos Music Market it was one of the pioneers of Australian

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain managem ...

and was able to grow quickly in its early years through an association with Australia's largest

ISP An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

at the time,

OzEmail OzEmail was a major Internet service provider (ISP) in Australia, until it was acquired by iiNet on 28 February 2005. History In the early 1980s, Sean Howard was the editor of the '' Australian Personal Computer'' magazine and subsequently f ...

. Initially the service was located at the URL www.cmm.com.au, then moved to www.chaosmusic.com in 1998 and finally to www.chaos.com in 2003. The Chaos.com domain was previously registered to Professor Tony Rutkowski and used as a Chaos Theory discussion area before it was sold to Chaos Group Limited in 2003. During the

dot com boom The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compos ...

Chaos attracted the attention of Sydney entrepreneurs

Malcolm Turnbull Malcolm Bligh Turnbull (born 24 October 1954) is an Australian former politician and businessman who served as the 29th prime minister of Australia from 2015 to 2018. He held office as leader of the Liberal Party of Australia. Turnbull grad ...

and David Coe who provided

seed capital Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term ''seed'' su ...

before the company was listed on the

Australian Stock Exchange Australian Securities Exchange Ltd or ASX, is an Australian public company that operates Australia's primary securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange (sometimes referred to outside of Australia as, or confused within Australia as ...

in December 1999 raising A$15M as set out in the Chaos Music Limited Prospectus. The Chaos Board at the time included David Coe (chairman), Rob Appel (CEO), David Spence (

Lucy Turnbull Lucinda Mary Turnbull AO (née Hughes; born 30 March 1958) is an Australian businesswoman, philanthropist, and former local government politician. She served on the Sydney City Council from 1999 to 2004, including as Lord Mayor of Sydney fr ...

(FTR) and Victoria Doidge (Chaos Marketing Executive). Shortly after the listing the

dot com crash The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

hit the market the Chaos share price declined substantially over the next 3 years. Chaos continued to grow strongly through this period and was ranked as the fastest growing company in Australia by

Deloitte Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (), commonly referred to as Deloitte, is an international professional services network headquartered in London, England. Deloitte is the largest professional services network by revenue and number of professio ...

in the Fast 50 Awards for 2002 due to revenue growth of 5,143% over 3 years. The Chaos website won the Onya Award for Most Popular Australian Online E-Tailer for three years running between 1999 and 2001. In 2003 the Chaos business was privatized in a management buyout headed by Rob Appel who continued as CEO of the new

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

known as Chaos Entertainment Pty Ltd. The

public entity A statutory corporation is a government entity created as a statutory body by statute. Their precise nature varies by jurisdiction, thus, they are statutes owned by a government or controlled by national or sub-national government to the (in ...

went on to transform itself into an energy retailer known as Australian Power and Gas (ASX: APK). In 2006, Chaos partnered with Stomp Entertainment for site management, distribution and fulfillment. Chaos.com continued to offer retail services through its website and by 2010 had a member base of over 350,000. It offered CDs, music downloads, DVDs, books, games and merchandise. Chaos shipped globally and provided payment facilities for most major currencies. It operated The CAN (Chaos Artist Network) which was first launched in 2000 and provided digital and physical

distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations * Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...

services to independent artists. The CAN was often referred to as 'Australia's

CDBaby CD Baby, Inc. is an online distributor of independent music. The company was described as an "anti-label" by its parent company's Chief Operating Officer Tracy Maddux. The CD Baby music store was shut down in March 2020 with a statement that " ...

'. In 2010, Chaos.com partnered with Elan Media Partners for site management, distribution and fulfillment In 2012, Élan Media Partners became the majority owner of Chaos.com and relaunched Chaos with a new modern look, cheaper prices and a wider range of products. In 2016, the Chaos.com website was replaced with a message saying it is undergoing "important maintenance". In 2017 the Chaos.com website was taken down; returning a, "server DNS address could not be found" with no further activity since.

References

External links

Chaos.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chaos.Com Online retailers of Australia Internet properties disestablished in 2017