Amazon.com Goes Domestic with living.com

Amazon.com Tuesday added home furnishings to its product lineup, taking an 18 percent stake in domestic site living.com.

With the agreement, living.com will pay Amazon.com (AMZN)
$145 million over five years in exchange for being the exclusive Amazon.com
domestic store — providing furniture, bedding and other related home
categories for the giant e-tailer. Amazon.com will acquire an 18 percent
stake in the company, with warrants for another 9 percent upon the
transaction’s closing. The firm will also have a seat on the living.com
board of directors.

Amazon.com, who inked the deal just a day after taking a 5 percent stake in
(ADBL)
, said it believes the move will result in greater shopping convenience and selection for Amazon.com customers.

“This means that living.com will be the leading provider of home living
products — a $180 billion market — on a valuable piece of e-tail real
estate. Further, it puts on a fast track our plans to rapidly broaden our
e-tailing offerings,” said Shaun Holliday, chief executive officer of
living.com.

The deal with living.com is latest installment in a series of investments
made by the behemoth. Last week, Amazon.com boosted its stake in drugstore.com (DSCM) , raising its stake to almost 28 percent with the $30 million investment.
The e-tailer also took a 5 percent stake in online car retailer Greenlight.com.