14 DAY TRIAL // Amazon has confirmed that it is testing a redesign of the site. It hasn't provided any more details nor said when it would be rolled out for all users. The new design is definitely cleaner and, a first for Amazon, not ugly.
While the new design is as practical as Amazon has always been, it's significantly more elegant than anything before it.
One thing to notice about the new design is that it's much better optimized for tablet devices.
It's not tablet-specific, i.e. everyone will get the same site regardless of the device they're using, but navigation has been simplified for touch input devices.
The Wall Street Journal has been able to confirm with Amazon that the new design is rolling out to all users, though there is no official timeline. The design had been spotted in the wild last week.
You can check out some screen shots and a description of the main elements in the coverage from the first time the new design surfaced.
An interesting thing to note about the redesign is the bigger focus on digital products, i.e. online music, movies, and Kindle ebooks.
There's a good reason for this. While Amazon remains the world's largest retailer, by a big margin, selling MP3s rather than CDs is a lot simpler and cheaper for the company.
While margins aren't great for digital content, rights owners typically get a huge chunk of the sale price, they're not great for most physical goods either.
The second reason for the new emphasis is Amazon's upcoming Kindle tablet which will feature and focus on all of Amazon's digital offering's, the MP3 store, the movie download and rental store and so on.