In keeping with its strategy of diversifying its product line, Amazon.com announced last week that it is moving into the auction and pet markets.
Amazon.com will aggregate the services of more than 100 auction sites -- selling everything from electronics to clothing -- and will solicit bids directly through its site. The bookseller -- whose bookselling component, as a percentage of total products carried, is dwindling rapidly -- might then take a flat fee or a cut from individual transactions, or both.
Amazon's setup will also include a guarantee, under which the company could pay hundreds of dollars to a consumer if he/she feels duped. The auction site went live last week, and CEO Jeff Bezos issued a letter to customers.A consultant at Forrester and Associates, a consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass., told PW, "This [the auction expansion] is a good idea for the company. It will enable Amazon to cash in even more rapidly on its eight million-customer database."
The news comes on the heels of Amazon's recently announced partnership with used-bookseller Alibris (né Interloc), which will allow Amazon to more easily deliver secondhand and antiquarian titles to customers.
In other Amazon expansion news, the company has agreed to take up to a 50% stake in Pets.com, the self-described largest pet retailer on the Net. The startup specializes "in popular and rare pet accessories, products, and food for all types of animals."
