Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s CEO, Jeff Bezos might have fended off many competitors and even scared some using his price war stories, but if Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) bites with its new Buy Button, it could prove to be fatal. Bloomberg’s Paul Kedrosky discussed the arrival of books from Hachette Publishing on Twitter’s new list of offerings.
On the outset it may seem that Twitter’s new experiment will take a long time to even come close to Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), and that is if it succeeds at all. It is not easy to operate in the same segment as Bezos, who could go to the extent of selling his product at a loss just to drive his competitors out of business. However, Kedrosky has hopes that Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR)’s new venture could evolve into something more novel than just a sale platform.
He gave an example where the author could just tweet that he will be selling signed copies of his books for the next few minutes or so, which could really drive the sales, and with Twitter there is this element of time pressure which could make people react instantly.
“[…] People’s relationship as book readers is not with Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), it is with writers themselves. They follow the writers on Twitter, they don’t follow Amazon on Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), so you can see the danger here. The danger here is that Amazon becomes somewhat, if not forgotten , but somewhat less important because the real relationship is with the writer, which can only become stronger and the relationship with Amazon weaker […],” said Kedrosky.
It is also surprising why it took Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) so long to launch this new product, given that the decision to launch the Buy Button was made months ago. Kedrosky explained that this is because of several other actors that had to be engaged for this venture.
“[…] It’s not actually Twitter directly, I mean it is partially Twitter involved. There is actually another company involved, a venture back company called Gumroad, which is backed by Kleiner Perkins and others, who is actually sitting in the middle of this transaction and facilitating it, and yet another company is involved in the fulfillment, so I think there is the complexity, what you are saying is that Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) is at the back end where you can make the purchase […],” said Kedrosky.
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