Office Depot Forges Online Partnership With Amazon.com
By Alan Wolf -- TWICE, 9/16/2002
Delray Beach, Fla.— After forging e-commerce pacts with Circuit City and Target, leading pure-play e-tailer Amazon.com has further expanded its online CE reach with the launch earlier this month of an Office Products store in partnership with Office Depot.
Office Depot is stocking the cyberstore with over 50,000 products including computers, monitors, memory cards and printers/scanners/copiers in addition to traditional office supplies and furniture, while Amazon will offer its own inventory including digital cameras and PDAs.
Under terms of the multi-year agreement, Amazon will process the credit card transactions and provide customer service while Office Depot will manage inventory and product fulfillment through its 24 distribution centers. All purchases, regardless of which retailer is supplying the merchandise, will share a common checkout. A limited number of SKUs may also be ordered online and picked up at Office Depot stores.
According to Office Depot chairman/CEO Bruce Nelson, the deal will help his company tap into the estimated $90 billion market in office product purchases made outside the office superstore channel.
