22 years of Amazon – what my orders say about me

By Oliver Schmalzl

#Rückblick #Daten #Bücher #Technik

18 October 2026

I have been ordering from Amazon since 2005, and Amazon keeps every order. I went through the list year by year and added it up. The result is more than a total: the orders show quite precisely what was on my mind at the time.

The numbers

The totals are the amounts Amazon shows per order. Returns are not deducted. That mainly concerns a hard drive in 2022 and a camera in 2026, so I actually spent a little less. A few orders are listed at €0.00; those were paid with credit. For two orders from 2010 Amazon shows no amount at all; they are left out of the average.

What stands out

Fewer orders, bigger amounts. The most orders were in 2019 (31) and 2009 (28); lately it is only 12 to 15 a year. The average has gone up instead: from just under €40 (2006) and just under €50 (2015) to almost €200 (2026). Small items are rarer.

The most expensive year was 2012. A network storage device (NAS) with several hard drives, a new router, an HDMI matrix: €3,720.40. Next come 2019 (TV, Raspberry Pi, network) and 2026. Without the returned camera, though, 2026 would be much lower.

The most expensive single purchase was the 75-inch TV in November 2019, at €1,012.05. Close behind: the projector in 2010 (€972.99) and the NAS in 2012 (€942.21).

Books are the common thread. They run through every year. Altogether there are more than two hundred.

Year by year

2005 – the start. In spring the online role-playing game Guild Wars. Then the first five seasons of The Simpsons, a DVD player and a novel.

2006 – Simpsons and Dutch. More Simpsons seasons. On the PC Guild Wars Factions, The Settlers II and both Syberia adventures. Plus a language course and verb tables for Dutch.

2007 – home cinema and Frank Miller. The first flat-screen TV and a home cinema system. Comics by Frank Miller: Sin City, 300, Ronin, Hard Boiled. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan novels, books about intelligence services. And several books on general knowledge and good manners, including the original Knigge.

2008 – Jack Ryan and comics. More Clancy novels, "V for Vendetta" and Frank Miller's Batman comics. Plus a satnav and the GTA spin-offs Vice City Stories and Liberty City Stories.

2009 – the busiest year so far. 28 orders. Lots of accessories for the iPhone 3G, a heart rate watch, external hard drives, a headset. Books: satires by Ephraim Kishon and two novels by Dan Brown. A second attempt at Dutch. At the end of the year Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 and 2.

2010 – PlayStation 3 and projector. The PS3 arrived, with Final Fantasy XIII, Dante's Inferno, Blur and LEGO Star Wars. Plus a Full HD projector with ceiling mount and a 10 m HDMI cable.

2011 – Falco, Skyrim, Steve Jobs. Music and documentaries by Falco. On the console Heavy Rain and the God of War collection, plus the Skyrim strategy guide. The Steve Jobs biography. On the computer the first SSD, a 27-inch monitor and a pen tablet.

2012 – my own network. A NAS with eight bays, 3 TB hard drives, router, switch and HDMI matrix. A car radio with Bluetooth. Books: "Game of Thrones", "Band of Brothers", Carl Sagan's "Pale Blue Dot" and Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion".

2013 – games and screens. Dark Souls, Darksiders II, Medal of Honor. A media player for the TV, plus cables and adapters. For reading, "The Hunger Games" and the first volume of Scott Pilgrim.

2014 – camera and classics. An action camera with mounts, smartphone accessories. Plus Goethe (Werther and Faust) and a running book.

2015 – on the road and with humour. Lots of camera accessories, hiking guides for Achensee and Rofan. Plus the cartoon books by The Oatmeal and "Cat vs Human". And the card game Exploding Kittens.

2016 – surveillance. Glenn Greenwald's "No Place to Hide" and the documentaries "Citizenfour" and "Inside Job". Plus a FileMaker manual.

2017 – photography and data. Macro lens, tripod, spare batteries for the compact camera. First books on data science and SQL. And Ken Follett's Century Trilogy.

2018 – smart home. Voice assistants, smart lamps, weather station, LED strips. At the same time books about calm and taking breaks. And a book about LEGO Technic.

2019 – home cinema, Raspberry Pi and climate. The big TV, a projection screen, network switches. Several Raspberry Pis in retro cases. And a new topic: climate and the future of the Earth, with Alan Weisman, Naomi Klein and Rolf Dobelli. Plus Snowden's "Permanent Record".

2020 – computer and garden. More RAM, faster SSDs, webcam, USB-C hub. A garden shed. And Marc Elsberg's thrillers: "Blackout", "Zero", "Helix".

2021 – optimism and series. "Factfulness" and "Warum es uns noch nie so gut ging" (why we have never had it so good). Plus the big series box sets: "The Wire", "The Sopranos", "Chernobyl". And the Haderer yearbooks.

2022 – energy and focus. Smart plugs that measure consumption. Books on the energy transition and climate, but also on concentration: Nir Eyal's "Indistractable" and "Hooked", plus "Tiny Habits".

2023 – Mars. Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy, plus "2312", "Aurora" and "The Ministry for the Future". Robert Zubrin's "The Case for Mars", "AI 2041", the Musk biography. And new Asterix volumes.

2024 – console, leadership, infographics. A games console. Several books on leadership. The infographic books by David McCandless. And climate again: "Earth for All", Elsberg's "°C – Celsius".

2025 – disruption. Tony Seba and RethinkX on the upheaval in energy, transport and agriculture. Maja Göpel, Anders Levermann, Frank Schätzing. For balance, Randall Munroe's "How To".

2026 – AI and household. Ray Kurzweil, Reid Hoffman's "Superagency", "Abundance". A book scanner. And a robot vacuum.

What I take from it

The list is an honest diary. Whatever interests me ends up in the shopping basket sooner or later. By the way, I added the books to my book collection straight away, and the films and games too.