Determined to become the first department store on the internet, Amazon.com Inc has announced a strategic alliance and minority investment in Gear.com Inc, an online retailer of sporting goods. Amazon now owns about 49% of Gear.com’s outstanding shares.
The Gear.com deal follows Amazon’s addition of toys and consumer electronics to its existing sales of books, videos and music. Amazon is not jumping into these new markets entirely blind. The company hired Los Angeles, California-based Impulse Research Corp to establish whether consumers would actually buy toys and consumer electronics online.
It found that 80% of respondents had postponed or delayed the purchase of an electronics product because of the difficulties of shopping in stores, 71% had encountered sales people who did not know the product and 65% had found it hard to find a sales person at all. Even so, only 55% said they would buy toys and consumer electronics over the net. The company is confident it can work its usual magic with that percentage.
