Target Selling Amazon’s Electronic Devices Again

Amazon consumer electronic devices such as Fire tablets, Fire TV devices and Kindle e-readers are back on sale at target.com and are scheduled to be available in stores in October 2016, according to Bloomberg. The Amazon Echo speaker is not included among the devices to be sold at Target. Target had been selling the Kindle e-reader since 2010; the product was the number-one seller on Black Friday 2011. Sources inside Target claimed sales of the products were halted due to a “conflict of interest,” which likely meant Target had been planning to enter the content distribution business. The conflict of interest appears to have been resolved, i.e., Target no longer plans to offer content.

Target’s Rationale

In Target’s March 2016 analyst meeting, the company outlined four signature merchandise categories—style, baby, kids and wellness—that are growing at three times the rate of normal businesses, and consumer electronics was not one of these categories.

Source: TechHive

Restocking Amazon electronic products could help mitigate softness in Target’s hardline sales. Target’s hardlines category, which encompasses electronics, including video game hardware and software, music, movies, books, computer software, sporting goods and toys, represented 17% of total sales in 2015, down from 18% in 2014. Revenues in this category decreased 4% in 2015 after a decrease of 1% in 2014.

Benefit to Amazon

With this move, Amazon regains exposure to customers in Target’s roughly 1,800 stores, and gets a physical presence in its competition with Apple in the market for content and content-delivery devices.