Amazon.com (truth be told, I’m a very small time investor) has recently taken over the online ordering business of CDNOW. The latter company, started in a garage in Philadelphia (truth be told, from where I hail), was always kind of crapola — bad service and way more email announcements than any CD company should ever need in order to stay in touch with customers.
But philosophically, this is interesting. CDNOW is now Amazon, as is Target, BabiesRUs, ToysRUs, Marshall Fields, Office Depot, and a host of other smaller companies now sold through their “Apparel & Accessories” tab (including Old Navy, Land’s End, Guess, and weird company Spiegel). Take a look at the huge tabs Amazon.com has set up for these stores. It’s possible that Amazon.com will become the online shopping equivalent of Microsoft in a nice, comfy, cool sort of way. We’ll feel bad about shopping there and curse its monopolies. Or, on the other hand, perhaps Amazon.com will become THE outpost for all comparison shopping — a bright star around thousands of unique competitors, illuminating their lines and innovating the technology used to sell things at their online st ores.