History of Amazon

Founding:

Jeff Bezos, a young man fresh out of Princeton, the university he graduated from in 1986, he quickly began to make a name for himself in the business world, eventually becoming vice-president of the major Wall Street firm DE Shaw and Co. A position he left in 1994 to launch his own company from Seattle (Washington). After reading a report on the future of the Internet that projected annual growth of web commerce of 2,300%, in the space of a garage (Seattle in 1994), Jeff Bezos decided to build his new online company. The result of this adventure was Cadabra (the embryo of Amazon).When the company was born, it was exclusively dedicated to selling books on the Internet. “With more than three million titles for sale and available throughout the world, the books category has more articles than any other”, acknowledged the founder of the company in an interview years ago.At the same time, in his incessant quest to improve business volume, the entrepreneur soon opted to change the name of the company. Bezos selected the name of Amazon by looking at the dictionary, he chose the name because of its association with the Amazonas river and also because it began with the first letter of the alphabet. Amazon’s slogan is From A to Z.

The beginning of Amazon

Bezos decided that this new business would sell books over the Web, due to the large worldwide demand for literature, the low price that could be offered for books, and the great selection of titles that were available in print.Amazon.com website was launched on July 16, 1995, immediately beginning an exponential growth of the company and its presence on the web. After 30 days of Amazon.com going online and without media promotion, Amazon was selling books in all 50 US states and 45 countriesAmazon Homepage 1995Bezos wanted to work on making the website as customer-friendly as possible and relating the site to all types of customers. The company offered discounts, affordable prices, offered topic areas to browse, books recently featured, a recommendation center, access to customer reviews… And a bunch of other customer hits!Despite the quick takeoff, not everything could be pink. It wasn’t long before other companies started attacking the new company, like Walmart that accused Bezos’s business of having stolen his business idea.