By John Oates, 25 July 2001 18:25
NEWS Rival booksellers Amazon and Waterstone's are joining forces to sell books online. Surfers logging on to the Waterstones site will, come the autumn, find themselves in an Amazon-hosted property. Waterstone's has decided to ditch efforts to go it alone online in an effort to cut costs. Amazon is to provide all delivery, inventory and customer support services. Peter Mitchell, business development director at Waterstone's, said: "The technology and infrastructure costs are elements that we do not wish to pay." He added the companies are hoping to launch the service in the autumn. Fifty Waterstone's employees could lose their jobs as a result of the deal. The bookseller will talk to those affected and try to reposition them within the company. Mitchell said: "We hope to keep these people within the group. We will need a small number for marketing and creating content for the site, but after that we will have to look at making redundancies." Steve Frazier, managing director of amazon.co.uk, told silicon.com: "We're hosting a site, we're not selling them technology. For us it means extra customers." He refused to be drawn on the financial details or to state whether it is a revenue sharing deal. Zena Meyer, head of design and interaction at DareStep, said: "I think this is good news for both companies. Waterstones is a leading high street book retailer and Amazon is probably the most trusted online brand - they're getting the best of both worlds." Meyer added that consumer confidence is still low - partly because of fears over credit card misuse and partly because people worry they will order incorrectly. DareStep is a design consultancy owned by Cap Gemini and Ernst & Young. To view the Waterstones site go to http://www.waterstones.co.uk.
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