What book was the first item sold by Amazon when it began online retailing in 1995?

Amazon’s first item sold was the book Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies in 1995.

The book was written by American cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter and explores concepts involving artificial intelligence, creativity, and analogy. Amazon began as an online bookstore, and books were chosen because they were relatively easy to catalogue and ship compared with many other retail products.

Jeff Bezos founded Amazon as Cadabra in 1994, but the company adopted the Amazon name later that year. The website began selling books online in July 1995 from the company’s headquarters in Bellevue, Washington.

A common mix-up is to identify Amazon’s first sale as a famous novel or bestseller. The first item was instead a nonfiction work with a highly specialized title. Amazon later expanded beyond books into music, video, electronics, household goods, cloud computing, and many other businesses.