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 t ...

based in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, that sold CDs, DVDs, games, books and music downloads over the

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

. Similar to

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...

, Chaos.com shipped to all countries around the world. The website was founded in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

, 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) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile co ...

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 a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non ...

at the time,

OzEmail OzEmail Pty Limited 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 sub ...

. 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 Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary area of Scientific method, scientific study and branch of mathematics. It focuses on underlying patterns and Deterministic system, deterministic Scientific law, laws of dynamical systems that are highly sens ...

discussion area before it was sold to Chaos Group Limited in 2003. During the

dot-com boom The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Intern ...

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 Liberal Party of Australia, leader of the Liberal Party an ...

and David Coe who provided

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

before the company was listed on the

Australian Stock Exchange Australian Securities Exchange Ltd (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 (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 from 2 ...

(FTR) and Victoria Doidge (marketing executive). Shortly after the listing the

dot com crash The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Interne ...

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 is a multinational professional services network based in London, United Kingdom. It is the largest professional services network in the world by revenue and number of employees, and is one of the Big Four accounting firms, along wi ...

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 A management buyout (MBO) is a form of acquisition in which a company's existing managers acquire a large part, or all, of the company, whether from a parent company or individual. Management- and/or leveraged buyouts became noted phenomena of 19 ...

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 Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

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, but they are corporations 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 Chaos Artist Network (CAN) 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 varia ...

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

CDBaby CD Baby, Inc. is a Portland, Oregon based online distributor of independent music. The company was described as an "anti-label" by its parent company's Chief Operating Officer Tracy Maddux. It was established in 1998 and offered distribution for ...

'. 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 Defunct online companies Defunct retail companies of Australia Internet properties disestablished in 2017