Why did Bezos shift from selling books to other products on Amazon?

There was a time when people were more familiar with Amazon as a website that sells ebooks. It was okay but Jeff Bezos wanted something more. He would like to have a website that people can visit whenever they would like to purchase something.

This was not a realistic thing to think about at that time but he pursued it until such time when it was starting to become the online shop that he always wanted it to be. The process of making other items become more available did not happen immediately. From books, they also started selling more music. The time came when they were starting to sell other items that people would like to have too.

Jeff Bezos’s initial dream was to build an everything store, that acts as a middle man between the manufacturers and the customers, that sold every product available. Since this didn't seem like a realistic goal in the beginning, Jeff decided to settle with selling books. And when this website was open to the public in 1995, it was the Earth's Biggest Bookstore.

And it was in 1998 that the company decide to move on to sell other products like music. Slowly during the years Amazon has started to sell clothes, makeup, tools, accessories, electronics, jewelry, toys, furniture kitchen utensils, and have even started to make and sell their own products like kindle. The only reason why amazon started selling products other than books was because that was why it was invented. And only then would it be called the everything store.

With any business, you have to go where the money is. If people are not buying your products, you may have to alter what you sell. You will want your business to succeed by selling more products or services. In the case of Amazon, Bezos knew he would need to monitor what is selling. He probably determined that the books would not sell as fast as the other products.

The books would sell if people found a book on Amazon that they did not find in the traditional brick and mortar stores. If the local bookstore carried a book that you needed, you would probably buy it from them because you would get the book instantly. Therefore, Bezos needed to sell things that would sell better.