14 DAY TRIAL // Amazon has announced that it has acquired UK-based online bookseller, The Book Depository. The terms of the deal or other details have not been disclosed. The Book Depository prides itself in its wide selection of books, it serves the long-tail mostly, and in the fact that it offers free shipping in more than 100 countries.
"Customers in more than 100 countries enjoy The Book Depository's vast selection, convenient delivery and free shipping," Greg Greeley, Amazon's vice president of European Retail, said.
"The Book Depository is very focused on serving its customers around the world, and we look forward to welcoming them to the Amazon family," he added.
"With the support of Amazon, we look forward to continuing our growth and providing an ever-improving service for readers globally," Andrew Crawford, founder of The Book Depository, said.
The price of the acquisition was not revealed. The Book Depository was estimated to have a revenue of almost $200 million (£120 million) this year.
The Book Depository is one of the fastest growing book sellers in Europe and has about one million customers. It sells about 6 million titles, a huge selection by any account. It strives to offer as many titles as possible and even creates new copies of out-of-print books through its own Dodo Press.
It's unclear what Amazon plans to do with its acquisition, whether it will continue to operate as a separate website or even as a separate entity, or it will be folded into the main Amazon.com.
The company has been pretty hands-off with some of its acquisitions, Zappos.com for example, but none were direct competitors to Amazon's own business, in this case book selling, what started it all at the company.
That said, merging The Book Depository into the main site would most likely mean dropping the free shipping aspect and maybe even some of the titles, probably not the smartest of moves.
It remains to be seen if Amazon bought it just to get rid of the competition or whether it actually plans to expand the business. Amazon has a smaller international presence. What's more, it's been focusing heavily on ebooks and other products lately and printed books have not been the main focus for a while now.