14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has reportedly planned to launch its own e-commerce marketplace and compete with Amazon and eBay, not only in the United States, but also on the global market.
Citing insiders who asked not to be named, The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft has already held talks with retailers and other technology companies to support its efforts for launching a marketplace, thus bringing a wide variety of products to customers around the world.
Microsoft’s idea was pretty much simple: they wanted to build a marketplace that would be available on the fly, obviously implemented in Windows, but also on some other company products, such as tablets, smartphones, and gaming consoles.
To make sure that its marketplace would be successful, Microsoft has even worked out a special discount plan based on advertising funds coming from Bing.
At this point, the idea of launching a marketplace is suspended, but it could be relaunched sometime in the future if everything goes right.
“Project Brazil was an incubation to enable a more direct commerce model between customers and brands and merchants. We remain committed to finding new and differentiated ways to enable a richer, more task oriented approach to e-commerce and online advertising,” a company insider told the source.
Challenging Amazon and eBay would be quite a tough challenge for Microsoft, as both of them have been on the market for more 20 years and are now controlling the lion’s share in the United States.
Amazon currently has a 26 percent of the United States e-commerce market, with online sales expected to reach $1.3 trillion (€1 trillion) this year, an increase of 18 percent as compared to 2012.
Microsoft obviously noticed this opportunity, so don’t be too surprised if Steve Ballmer gives his go-ahead in the near future for a more optimistic plan to fight with online retailing giants.