Amazon to run online stores for NBA, WNBA
Building on its move into apparel sales, Amazon.com Inc. will operate the retail shops on NBA.com and WNBA.com under a multi-year agreement with the National Basketball Association and Foot Locker Inc. The move further entrenches Amazon as a leading e-commerce platform provider, analysts say. It also expands Amazon`s market in the traditionally strong area of sports-licensed apparel and accessories.
"Amazon has established itself as the choice for outsourcing e-commerce," says Neil Stern, a principal with retail consultants McMillan/Doolittle in Chicago. "They`ve built an incredible e-commerce platform, and they have the best search mechanism and site capabilities for merchandising and customer personalization."
Amazon will operate the online stores as sites co-branded with Amazon and NBA logos. As it has done with other apparel sales, such as for Gap Inc. and Nordstrom Inc., Amazon will handle merchandising and order-taking for the NBA web sites, but leave order fulfillment to others. As part of the agreement with the NBA and Foot Locker, Foot Locker will handle all fulfillment and customer service.
Stern notes that Amazon has not invested as much as it could have in perfecting its online merchandising technology in recent years, as it has focused more on profitability, but it still appears to offer the best overall platform for outsourced services. "They haven`t spent much time on merchandising, but they`re still way ahead of others," he says.
He adds that it makes sense to have Foot Locker handle fulfillment for the NBA stores, since it already provides fulfillment for its own sales over Amazon.
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