when did amazon start

Amazon started in 1994 and launched its website in 1995.

Quick Scoop

The very beginning

• Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos on July 5, 1994, in Bellevue, Washington, originally under the name “Cadabra.”

• It began as an online bookstore , run out of Bezos’s garage, focusing on selling books over the early World Wide Web.

When the site actually went live

• The Amazon.com website officially launched as an online bookseller on July 16, 1995.

• In its first weeks, Amazon sold books to all 50 U.S. states and dozens of countries, signaling rapid early traction.

How it evolved afterward

• From 1994–1998, Amazon remained primarily a bookseller, then started expanding into music, movies, and more product categories.

• This gradual expansion into many categories led to its reputation as “the everything store.”

In short, if you’re asking “when did Amazon start,” you can point to July 5, 1994 (founding) and July 16, 1995 (site launch as an online bookstore).

TL;DR: Amazon was founded July 5, 1994, and the Amazon.com site went live July 16, 1995, as an online bookstore.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.