How much would it cost to buy everything on Amazon?

Amazon is brilliant. At the online retailer you can buy anything from electricals to clothing, entertainment and groceries to stock your fridge (which you also probably bought on Amazon) – but have you ever wondered what it would cost if you wanted to buy one of everything it sold in one go?

One man has taken up the task to satisfy curiosity and tally what the bill would be based on an average cost of every item sold on the US store. If you've got a spare $12.86bn (£9.2bn) lying around and an understanding postman then it's all yours.

Kynan Eng, a computer scientist based in Zurich, took on the challenge to how much it would cost to buy one of all Amazon's wares after the question was posed on Q&A site Quora. He began by taking the total number of items available, which was 479 million, then multiplying that by the average price of an item on Amazon, which came to the extremely grand total of $12.86 (£9.2) billion.

Now, it has to be said this is an estimate as the price of a keyring is wildly different to that of a widescreen TV. However, by using an average he is able to get in the rough ballpark. It's also worth noting that this figure is based on only one of every item, meaning the total figure for the entire stock of Amazon (as many items are stocked in quantity) will be significantly higher. The job to go through each and every item would take untold man hours better left for the bored and restless.

Fictional economics

Eng is no stranger to providing enlightening answers to headscratchers posed on the internet, as he often takes to Quora to answer questions relating to his day job of neuroscience. He told USA Today: "I fairly quickly found myself getting diverted answering silly questions."

He has also productively spent his spare time answering movie-related financial fallout in what he calls "amateur fictional economics" such as 'how much money has been spent rescuing Matt Damon in all his movies'. If you're wondering, it's $900bn, with his rescue from Mars in the Martian taking up a fair chunk of the aid budget at an estimated $200bn.