Amazon was the company founded by Jeff Bezos that originally sold books online.
Bezos incorporated the business as Cadabra, Inc. in Washington on July 5, 1994, after leaving his job at investment firm D. E. Shaw. He chose books because they had enormous demand, relatively low unit prices, and an unusually large number of titles that could be listed in an online catalog.
The company changed its name to Amazon later in 1994, and Amazon.com opened to the public on July 16, 1995. Its early business was an online bookstore, but the company expanded into music, video, electronics, toys, and many other categories. That expansion led to its nickname, “the everything store.”
The common trap is assuming Amazon began as a general marketplace. It did not: books were the original product category. Barnes & Noble was a major bookselling rival, while eBay and Alibaba developed around different marketplace models.