After a four year spat, it seems peace has been reached between Amazon and Target, at least when it comes to the sale of Amazon’s tablets and e-readers on its website and on its shelves. The gadgets are already back online and will begin showing up in-store in advance of the holiday rush in October.
The move to get rid of Amazon products in 2012 was at the time widely held as a smart play on Target’s part, with many experts pointing to the Trojan Horse-like nature of the Amazon tablets. They might be tablets, but they are also devices designed to help their owners do more of their shopping on Amazon. Walmart made a similar move a few months later, though Best Buy kept them stocked.
“Target continually evaluates our assortment to deliver quality products at a great value,” the company said in a statement. “We know our guests love the many aspects of shopping at Target, and believe they will appreciate the convenience and savings of finding these items in our stores and on Target.com.”
But in the last four years, Target’s new CEO Brian Cornell has refocused his store’s brand around kids, beauty, fashion and baby sections while also introducing new exclusive brands. Customer feedback indicated that consumers wanted access to Amazon devices, and Target wants to stock what consumers want, especially since its electronics department could frankly use a boost.
Plus, with nearly half of all U.S. household signed up for Prime, it isn’t like Target is really keeping people away from Amazon by not stocking Kindles.
For Amazon’s part, peace with Target gives their products a nice physical showroom – and a space to play with the devices that Amazon can’t quite replicate.
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