In 1995, this bookstore had no door.

In July 1994, Jeff Bezos incorporated a company called Cadabra, Inc. and ran it out of the garage of a rented house in Bellevue, Washington. A year later it had a new name and something to sell.

On July 16, 1995, Amazon opened as an online bookseller. There was no shop, no shelf and no front door. The whole store was a webpage with a search box and a list of titles, at a time when buying a book meant driving to one.

It worked faster than a physical shop could have. In its first two months Amazon sold to customers in all 50 states and more than 45 countries. Within those same two months, sales reached $20,000 a week.

A bookstore on a street corner serves the people who walk past it. This one served anyone who could load the page.

The web wasn’t a brochure. It was the store.

Most small-business websites are still built as brochures: a logo, a paragraph about the owner, a phone number at the bottom. They describe the business and leave the visitor to work out the next step alone.

A site that works as the storefront does the job a good front counter does. It shows what you sell, what it costs or how to get a price, and lets someone book, order or ask while they are still interested.

Check your own site

• Can a first-time visitor tell what you do and where, without scrolling?
• Is there one obvious next step: call, book, order or request a quote?
• Does that step work from a phone with one thumb?
• Are your real hours, prices or price ranges, and service area on the page?
• If your door were locked tomorrow, could the site still take an order or a booking?

Sources

• Wikipedia, “History of Amazon” (founding, launch date, first two months of sales)
• HISTORY, “Amazon opens for business”