Īmazon Books opened its third store in the Washington Square mall in the Portland metropolitan area. During development of the project, it was referred to as 'Project Anne' in filings with the city. In February 2016, tech news website Re/code reported that longtime Amazon executive Steve Kessel was leading the retail store initiative, having previously been part of the team to launch the first Amazon Kindle e-reader. The store has been described as the first permanent store from Amazon, who opened pop-up shops and pickup outlets on several university campuses in 2015. The first Amazon Books store opened on November 2, 2015, located at the University shopping center in Seattle, Washington. Two locations of Amazon Books had a cafe. The store also sold Amazon electronics, including the Amazon Kindle e-book reader, the Kindle Fire tablet series, the Amazon Echo, and the Amazon Fire TV.

The shelves displayed positive reviews and star-ratings from the website and prices were matched to online equivalents. The first location in Seattle had approximately 5,000 titles stocked on its bookshelves, using shelf space to display the covers of books facing outwards instead of spines according to Amazon, the decision was made to showcase the authors and their work, rather than efficient use of space.

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