When Amazon started, it was an online book store. “Books on the internet” was the entirety of Amazon when they launched. But Why Books?
They found a niche? They wanted an online library? A global supermarket? Well, remember this was a time when online shopping was very new. Books were easier to sell? Pretty close..
Variety is the right answer. When Jeff Bezos started Amazon, his consideration was - What product has the most sub products? - The number of "products" that could be available in the books category exceeded every other category. And since it was at the early stages of online shopping, people wanted to touch, feel and experience their purchase. So Amazon had to select a product that didn't only rely solely on touch and feel but also had over a billion titles.
So it was the best way to get customers to try the platform - by not spend a lot ( because of how low even the most expensive book costed!) - which had the widest repository of products in the very starting month. This strategy is used by a lot of companies in various ways - use a product/category that may not be the most effective financially but will get the first thousand/million customers to whom later they can sell other products and ads.
Amazon, when they started out, owned nothing but today! That's how a lot of Internet companies have a website where they let people sell their own stuff. Amazon Started That! They let booksellers initially sell their own products and later after 2/3 years started selling their own Amazon Products. Am I right, Alexa?
Even today books are one of the most sold products on Amazon, mainly because of their relatively low prices.
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