Apple’s Desperate E-Commerce Deal

Apple has made a deal with global online retail juggernaut, Amazon, which will see select Apple products now sold directly through the marketplace.

In the past, the only Apple products sold on Amazon were through third-party sellers, as Apple declined to sell its products on a platform that produces rival technology.

Now, consumers can expect to see Apple products sold via Amazon, directly from Apple itself, as well as authorised resellers in a number of countries, including the US, UK, France, Germany and Italy, and Spain, Japan and India.

“Amazon is constantly working to enhance the customer experience, and one of the ways we do this is by increasing selection of the products we know customers want. We look forward to expanding our assortment of Apple and Beats products globally,” an Amazon representative told The Verge.

The Apple-Amazon deal doesn’t include every Apple product, just select ones like the iPhone XS, XS Max and XR. Some notable exclusions from its marketplace sales offering is its HomePod, which isn’t surprising since the product is in direct competition with Amazon’s suite of Echo products

Over the next few weeks, any Amazon sellers advertising Apple products on the platform that aren’t an authorised reseller will have their product listings removed.

Apple has been facing increasing competition in the US of late. Earlier in the month, news broke that Walmart had stripped Apple of its coveted position as the third biggest online retailer in the US. According to the latest projections from eMarketer, Walmart will have control of four percent of America’s total e-commerce sales. This is thanks to the company’s heavy investments in the online retail space over the past few years, which has seen the business expand its click-and-collect offerings, create digital shopping apps, and ramp up its two-day delivery capabilities.

Despite being faced with a number of hurdles in the digital space, Apple’s profitable year saw it take a record-breaking turn in August 2018, to become the first company to reach the coveted trillion-dollar valuation mark. Despite making it to the finish line in first place, it’s believed Amazon will soon catch-up, with the marketplace’s soaring share prices making it a real competitor for Apple’s coveted crown.

Amazon’s stock has been on a steady incline, with a recent market swing seeing it pass the $2,000 mark. It’s the first time the company’s shares have risen so high, and they continue to remain above the mark despite some fluctuation.

The company will reach a $1 trillion valuation if its share price surpasses $2,050, which seems likely given recent surges. Not only has Amazon’s stock doubled in the last year, but its 2018 performance has been particularly good, and it saw a steady boost across several days this week. Amazon continues to pull ahead of Google’s parent company Alphabet, another contender for trillion-dollar status.

Analysts are increasingly confident that Amazon is on its way to meeting the trillion-dollar milestone, but there’s no timeframe yet on when that may be. Given the company’s rapid growth – well over 500 percent in the last four years – it probably isn’t far away.

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