History of Amazon
Amazon was founded in 1994, spurred by what Bezos called "regret minimization framework," his effort to fend off regret for not staking a claim in the Internet gold rush.[5] While company lore says Bezos wrote the business plan while he and his wife drove from New York to Seattle,[6] that account appears to be apocryphal.[7]
The company began as an online bookstore;[7] while the largest brick-and-mortar bookstores and mail-order catalogs for books might offer 200,000 titles, an online bookstore could offer more. Bezos named the company "Amazon" after the world's biggest river. Since 2000, Amazon's logotype is an arrow leading from A to Z, representing customer satisfaction (as it forms a smile); the goal was to have every product in the alphabet.[8]
In 1994, the company incorporated in the state of Washington, beginning service in July 1995, and was reincorporated in 1996 in Delaware. The first book Amazon.com sold was Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.[9] Amazon.com issued its initial public offering of stock on May 15, 1997, trading under the NASDAQ stock exchange symbol AMZN, at an IPO price of US$18.00 per share ($1.50 after three stock splits in the late 1990s).
Amazon's initial business plan was unusual: the company did not expect a profit for four to five years; the strategy was effective. Amazon grew steadily in the late 1990s while other Internet companies grew blindingly fast. Amazon's "slow" growth provoked stockholder complaints: that the company was not reaching profitability fast enough. When the dot-com bubble burst, and many e-companies went out of business, Amazon persevered, and finally turned its first profit in the fourth quarter of 2001: $5 million, just 1¢ per share, on revenues of more than $1 billion, but the profit was symbolically important.
In 1999, Time magazine named Bezos Person of the Year, recognizing the company's success in popularizing online shopping.
Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company Amazon, a Fortune 500 company based in Seattle, Washington, is the global leader in e-commerce. Since Jeff Bezos started Amazon in 1995, we have significantly expanded our product offerings, international sites, and worldwide network of fulfillment and customer service centers. Today, Amazon offers everything from books and electronics to tennis rackets and diamond jewelry. We operate sites in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, and China (Joyo.com) and maintain over 25 fulfillment centers around the world which encompass more than 12 million square feet.
Technological InnovationTechnological innovation drives the growth of Amazon, offering our customers more types of products, more conveniently, and at even lower prices. We offer a personalized shopping experience for each customer, book discovery through "Search Inside The Book", convenient checkout using "1-Click® Shopping", and several community features like
Listmania and
Wish Lists that help our customers to discover new products and make informed buying decisions.
Building the Platform
In 2000, Amazon began to offer its best-of-breed e-commerce platform to other retailers and to individual sellers. Now, big-name retailers work with Amazon Services to power their e-commerce offerings from end-to-end, including technology services, merchandising, customer service, and order fulfillment. Other branded merchants also leverage Amazon as an incremental sales channel for their new merchandise; you can find products from top retailers across our retail site. Finally, independent software developers also derive value from the platform--through Amazon Web Services--by building profitable applications and services that cater to Amazon customers and sellers.
We've Only Just Begun
This evolution of Amazon from Web site to e-commerce partner to development platform is driven by the spirit of innovation that is part of the company's DNA. E-commerce is still in its infancy. In the years to come, you'll see Amazon create new technologies, expand into more geographies and continue to improve the lives of shoppers and sellers around the world.
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