This week in Amazon news: stolen Lego sets sold on eBay, a bookstore chain in the UK will start selling Kindles and Amazon has their yearly shareholder meeting.
Silicon Valley Exec uses Fake Barcodes to Steal Lego – Allegedly using fake barcodes that he printed himself, a top executive at SAP has been caught stealing thousands of dollars worth of Lego bricks from Target. Over about a year, he sold 2,100 items on eBay under the name TomsBrickYard. This reminds me of a similar story here in Oregon a few years ago. I’m really glad this guy was caught! It just isn’t fair to all the sellers out there who are doing things the right way!
Will Selling Kindles Save The UK’s Biggest Chain Bookstore? – Waterstones, the largest chain bookstore in the UK announced that they’ll start selling Kindles in-store. This comes less than 5 months after the head of Waterstones called Amazon a “ruthless, money-making devil.” In addition to selling Kindles, Waterstones will receive a percentage of all e-books ordered by Kindle users inside their store. This seems like a very risky move to me, since eventually everyone will have a Kindle and then will the cut from e-book sales be enough to survive? At the very least, I’m interested to see if other bookstores adopt this model as well.
Can the Good Times Last for Amazon? – Yesterday was Amazon’s yearly shareholder meeting in Seattle. Activists showed up to protest issues including the allegedly excessive electricity used in Amazon’s server farms and the company’s failure to pay sales tax in many states. In addition, analysts are wondering how long Amazon’s stock can continue to grow, despite slow-growing profits. But then again, it seems like people have been saying that for years. How much more do you think Amazon can grow?
As always, if you come across any Amazon news you’d like to see featured, feel free to email me, leave a comment here or find me on Twitter, @SellerEngine.