Amazon.com: a virtual business pioneer
Amazon.com is not only a true heavyweight in the online commerce industry; it helped to pave the way for other virtual business entrepreneurs and pioneers to follow in its supremely successful footsteps. Today, Amazon is the largest online retailer in the country, with little to no imminent threat to challenge the crown. Staples, the silver medalist in the category, claims only a third of the total online revenue generated by the e-commerce supergiant.
Amazon has become a household name among pretty much any computer literate family in America, but this kind of mainstream recognition did not happen overnight. What we now know as Amazon.com was actually founded 16 years ago, in 1994, by Jeffrey P. Bezos. The idea was to create an online bookstore, but as time would tell, this was only the starting point of much loftier aspirations. The website first launched online a year later in 1995, under its original name “Cadabra.com.” At a time before online shopping was commonplace, Bezos had the innovative mind to look at the internet not as intimidating wilderness but as a vast, bountiful forum in which business could be conducted sans the inherent limitations of the typical brick and mortar company. Without having to carry a copy of every title in a bevy of consumer accessible stores, the internet allowed for Bezos’ upstart bookstore to make a wider variety of books available to the public for purchase. In a sense, the new company’s capacity for breadth of selection was only just being realized, expanding to sell everything from home improvement products to electronics. The ingenuity behind Amazon’s zShops (now Amazon Marketplace) and Auctions was the driving goal to offer a one stop shop where consumers could find any item their heart desired.
Amazon’s insatiable entrepreneurial spirit, combined with the impressive scope of the operation just a few years after its launch, led Time Magazine to honor founder Bezos as its Person of the Year for 1999, citing his influence in popularizing online shopping, now the bread and butter of the virtual business world.