Within two months, Amazon's sales were up to $20,000/week. In the first two months of business, Amazon sold to all 50 states and over 45 countries. Amazon was able to access books at wholesale from Ingram. The company began as an online bookstore, an idea spurred off with discussion with John Ingram of Ingram Book (now called Ingram Content Group), along with Keyur Patel who still holds a stake in Amazon. Amazon was founded in the garage of Bezos' home in Bellevue, Washington.
Bezos finally decided that his new business would sell books online, due to the large worldwide demand for literature, the low price points for books, along with the huge number of titles available in print. He narrowed the list to what he felt were the five most promising products, which included: compact discs, computer hardware, computer software, videos and books. Īfter reading a report about the future of the Internet that projected annual Web commerce growth at 2,300%, Bezos created a list of 20 products that could be marketed online. Since June 19, 2000, Amazon's logotype has featured a curved arrow leading from A to Z, representing that the company carries every product from A to Z, with the arrow shaped like a smile. Brand names are more important online than they are in the physical world." Additionally, a name beginning with "A" was preferential due to the probability it would occur at the top of any list that was alphabetized. A lot of it comes down to the brand name. And it still built a huge, multibillion-dollar company. Bezos placed a premium on his head start in building a brand, telling a reporter, "There's nothing about our model that can't be copied over time. īezos selected the name Amazon by looking through the dictionary and settled on "Amazon" because it was a place that was "exotic and different" just as he envisioned for his Internet enterprise the Amazon river, he noted was by far the "biggest" river in the world and he planned to make his store the biggest in the world. The domain is still owned by Bezos and still redirects to the retailer. In September 1994, Bezos purchased the URL and briefly considered naming his online store Relentless, but friends told him the name sounded a bit sinister. Bezos changed the name to Amazon a year later after a lawyer misheard its original name as "cadaver". He began to work on a business plan for what would eventually become .īezos incorporated the company as "Cadabra" on July 5, 1994. Shaw & Co., a Wall Street firm and moved to Seattle. In 1994, Bezos left his employment as vice-president of D. The company was founded in 1994, spurred by what Amazon founder Jeff Bezos called his "regret minimization framework," which described his efforts to fend off any regrets for not participating sooner in the Internet business boom during that time. This allows it to practice forms of censorship, and allegedly even to promote anti-white politics. Due to its size, Amazon has extensive power to choose which retailers operating through its sites are favored, and which may be restricted or banned for political reasons. In 2015, Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the United States by market capitalization, and was by 2017 the fourth most valuable public company. At a corporate level, Amazon has a politically progressive or left-wing culture. It has developed complex and often hidden worldwide retail networks. The company also produces consumer electronics-notably, Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, Fire TV, and Echo-and is the world's largest provider of cloud infrastructure services (IaaS and PaaS). Ī started as an online bookstore, later diversifying to sell DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, video downloads/streaming, MP3 downloads/streaming, audiobook downloads/streaming, software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry. As such it wields massive influence and power over mainstream culture, and is cited as one of the largest socially converged organizations. With headquarters in Seattle, Washington, it is the largest retailer in the world by total sales and market capitalization.
July 5, 1994 27 years ago ( ) (as Cadabra)Īppstore, AWS, The Book Depository, comiXology, Game Studios, Video, Instant Video UK, Instant Video German, Audible, Kindle, Fire, Lab126, Studios,, Woot, Echo, (closed), Shopbop, Askville Ī9.com, Amazon Web Services, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, Alexa Internet,, comiXology, Digital Photography Review, Goodreads, Internet Movie Database,, , Zappos, Įnglish, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Polish, TurkishĪ ( / ˈ æ m ə z ɒ n/ or / ˈ æ m ə z ə n/), also called Amazon, is an American electronic commerce and cloud computing megacorporation that was founded on July 5, 1994, by Jeff Bezos.