Amazon.com Monday put its strategic
alliance with drugstore.com to use by
launching its new health and beauty store with a direct gateway to the online
pharmacy.
When shoppers go to the Amazon.com (AMZN)
home page, they can click the health and beauty tab and enter the
drugstore.com (DSCM)
online storefront.
This arrangement offers consumers convenient access to drugstore.com’s more
than 20,000 health and beauty products, useful content and buying guides and
pharmacy. drugstore.com is the first Amazon.com partner to be featured as an
integrated part of Amazon.com’s navigational structure.
“We are always looking for ways to improve the Amazon.com shopping
experience. We want our customers to come to us to find anything and
everything that they might want to buy online,” said Jeff Bezos, founder and
chief executive officer of Amazon.com.
“This new store provides our 17 million customers with a
convenient link to a wealth of health and beauty products, information, and
services from drugstore.com.”
Last January, the giant retailer invested $30 million to raise its stake in
the online drugstore to 28 percent. In turn, the pharmacy paid Amazon.com
$105 million to become the first permanent “tab” on its Web site that will
let customers directly access drugstore.com’s products and services.
Previously, Amazon.com offered temporary links and gift certificates for
drugstore.com.
The launch comes at a time when business among e-tailers is somewhat slow
and many dot-com stocks have seen significant drops, which industry pundits
say is a sign of the e-commerce sector becoming too clogged with firms
trying to sell their wares on the Web.