For those who have been boycotting social media the past few years, #ThrowbackThursday is a popular Instagram and Twitter hashtag which users use to upload old images and reminisce. As a digital marketing agency, it’s not surprising we’re fans of ‘internet funnies’ and after spending one to many an afternoon on the Way Back Machine we decided to do our own marketing throwback.

This week, we travelled back to the year 2000 to see what online shopping with Amazon was like back in the day.

From first glance, the site doesn’t do too badly. The logo has barely changed in the last 15 years, with only the .co.uk being noticeably different, although the ‘Welcome to Amazon.co.uk’ is both unnecessary and a bit of an eye sore.

The site’s body font is the unattractive and old fashioned Times New Roman, not an unusual choice for back in 2000, and the stock images are unbelievably small, with each alternative image displayed on different sides of the page. My personal favourite, however, is the PowerPoint style icons used to highlight ‘E-mail Recommendations’ and ‘Music Chart Busters’, and the glimpse of Jamie Oliver’s hair back from 2000.

In 2006, Amazon clearly decided to try something new. Not only had they steered clear of Times New Roman (thankfully), they decided to use an image representative of each category in order to represent a range of products, rather than individual products. There’s a ‘Star Choice’ section in the top left, presumably designed to push popular items – which appears to be erotica in 2006! On the right hand side is key products and deals, similar to how many websites work nowadays.

As well as web advertising, Amazon were pushing their DVD rental service – funnily enough, placed in the exact same position as Amazon Prime is currently.

2008 saw Amazon’s homepage change once again, with a push on individual products - but more of them. Instead of a web advert, they used the top space to advertise their own offers - a much more effective way of driving sales, instead of pushing customers to an external site! The number of categories to choose from has increased from nine to twelve, and the right side bar is pushing more deals than previously.

Current day Amazon has definitely changed a lot from 2008. The home page, rather than pushing generic products, uses personalised adverts based on cookies stored on the website. In my case, I was searching for reviews of a Breville Blend-Active, something which will be reflected in adverts across my social media too. Pushing products which have been previously looked at is a much more effective way of internet advertising than displaying random products, and is pretty much standard for online stores like Amazon now.

Instead of a messy header full of categories, Amazon has now gone for a drop down menu at the top left. However, the majority of the space has been taken up by Amazon’s self-promotion of Amazon Prime, Kindle and mobile apps. Rather than portraying Amazon as self-centred, it shows how far they have come in the past 15 years. Rather than simply being an online retailer, they have really come into their own as a brand.

The Way Back machine, along with other archive based websites, is good for a bit of a laugh, but can also be used to highlight how far the internet has come since first being built. We’re planning on doing a weekly feature so make sure you come back and see which website we’ll be delving into every week!