A history of Amazon
As far as e-commerce companies go there is absolutely no beating Amazon, the Jeff Bezos founded business that is now amongst the biggest in the world. It really is absolutely bonkers when you think about it – here at Winzum we’re willing to bet that pretty much everybody has used Amazon at least once in their life!
You know what we’re like over at Winzum as well: always looking for an interesting story or two to tell. Well, looking through the history of these huge all-conquering companies is always pretty fascinating, as proven by our investigations into the history of eBay [a quick history of eBay], for example, or PayPal [a history of PayPal]. Now it’s time to take a look at the history of Amazon, so hold tight for a quick run through!
1994: The early beginnings
The Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was a particularly successful Wall Street hedge fund executive before he decided to launch the Amazon project, something that was initially called Cadabra. Although Amazon started out as solely a book seller, Bezos always maintained that it would be a “technology company” first and foremost.
As the famous story goes, in the early days of Amazon the company was operated out of Bezos’ basement in Bellevue, Washington. It just goes to show, anything is possible if you put your mind to it!
1999: Time Magazine “Person of the Year”
Despite still not turning over a profit, by 1997 Amazon was launched on the stock market, and immediately caught the intention of many investors. In 1998 the company announced that it would move beyond just selling books, kick-starting the process that has made it the world’s No. 1 online marketplace.
Their revenue quickly grew as a result, and by 1999 Amazon was spearheading the e-commerce drive, helping to greatly popularise the Internet in the process. Things were getting very exciting indeed, culminating in Jeff Bezos being named the prestigious Time Magazine “Person of the Year” in 1999.
2001: Amazon makes its first profit
Amazingly, Amazon still hadn’t turned over a true company profit until the final quarter of 2001, despite the fact it was now operating all over the world, and selling a vast range of products too.
It is pretty fascinating to think that a company on the level of Amazon’s had to wait several years to turnover a company profit, and it just proves that good things happen to those who wait.
2007: Amazon introduces the Kindle
Amazon’s stock continued to grow exponentially in the early 2000s, as more and more customers turned to the e-commerce site following the Internet boom. Bezos steadily added new products to the Amazon repertoire, also opening up its marketplace for third-party sellers.
In 2007 a huge flagship statement was needed from the company, and it came in the form of the Amazon Kindle launch, initially an e-book reader, before evolving into a genuine computer tablet. This got the e-book business well and truly underway, completely shaking up the publishing industry in the process.
2017: Amazon buys supermarket chain Whole Foods Market Inc.
During the 2010s Amazon continued to expand their vast, almost infinite, catalogue of goods for sale, whilst also continuously honing their customer user experience to make it as smooth and easy as possible. On top of this, the company worked hard to further speed up their delivery process, wowing people with ludicrously quick delivery turnovers.
What was next to do? Amazon had the world at its feet in 2017, and the next stage of the story was to buy the supermarket chain Whole Foods Market Inc. Grocery shopping was one of the last remaining frontiers for Amazon to break, and after this multi-billion acquisition they had their sites firmly placed on it.