What was the first product category sold on Amazon?

The first product category sold on Amazon was books. Amazon opened on July 16, 1995, as an online bookseller, years before it became a broad marketplace for electronics, clothing, toys, groceries, and other goods.

Jeff Bezos considered several categories for online retail, including compact discs, computer hardware, software, videos, and books. He chose books because they had worldwide demand, relatively low unit prices, and an enormous number of titles that could not fit in a conventional bookstore. The company could therefore offer a much larger selection online than a physical shop.

Amazon's first book sale was Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought. The sale helped establish Amazon's original identity as an internet bookstore. A common mix-up is assuming that Amazon began by selling general merchandise; those categories came later as the company expanded beyond books.