For an undisclosed sum, Amazon are looking to acquire UK online bookseller, The Book Repository. Interestingly, the founder of the Book Depository is an ex-Amazon employee, Andrew Crawford and unlike Amazon stuck to just book sales as its sole trade.
The Book Repository ships books, yes, physical books, worldwide, in addition to offering a wide selection of ebooks for sale. Therefore, we are not quite sure what Amazon is hoping to gain from its purchase, other than to remove a fairly non-threatening competition from the market.
Amazon’s Vice President of Europe Retail said:
Customers in more than 100 countries enjoy The Book Depository’s vast selection, convenient delivery and free shipping. [I]The Book Depository is very focused on serving its customers around the world, and we look forward to welcoming them to the Amazon family. [/I]
It seems Amazon’s move is more likely to be based around the Kindle, after purchasing the Book Repositories infrastructure and ebooks, it will try to push the existing customer base towards its Kindle and more importantly away from competing devices.
There are many other benefits to Amazon with this purchase and hopefully more details will come to light after the deal has been approved by the Office of Fair Trading.
