Dive Brief:
- E-commerce giant Amazon said Thursday that it will stop selling the popular Apple TV and Google Chromecast products on its site.
- Third-party merchants have been banned from selling the devices on Amazon's marketplace, according to The New York Times.
- Amazon is making the move because Apple and Google's products compete with Amazon's Fire TV and the Fire TV Stick products, as well as Prime Video -- the video streaming library that is a key perk for Amazon Prime members.
Dive Insight:
The move is significant and largely without precedent. Although Amazon previously stopped selling Hachette books during its dispute with the publisher last year, it still allowed third-party merchants to sell Hachette books. Now, Amazon has taken a step further in its war against Google and Apple for the customer relationship by banning even third parties from selling the devices.
While Amazon has long touted itself the online store where you can buy virtually anything, the move to ban popular products could erode that value proposition. It's unclear how the move will go over with consumers, who clearly seem to like the now-banned products. Google Chromecast and Apple TV were two particularly popular products on Amazon, with the devices slotting in at numbers 6 and 14, respectively, on the e-commerce giant's list of top-selling electronics. Notably, Amazon will continue to sell video streaming devices from other major technology companies, such as Roku, Xbox, and Playstation.
As Google and Apple have rolled out new music and video offerings, Amazon appears to see them as a threat to the relationship it is looking to develop with consumers through its Prime ecosystem. But even though the move is big news now, this latest development may simply be a prelude to an all-out war between Amazon, Apple, and Google to own the customer relationship inside the home.
“We’re seeing a turf war play out between Apple, Amazon and Google,” Ben Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies, told The New York Times.
In a statement, Amazon said very little about the move:
“Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime. It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion. Roku, Xbox, PlayStation and Fire TV are excellent choices.”