Amazon to offer online wholesale alternative

Ecommerce giant Amazon will begin selling items in bulk at wholesale prices. According to a report from USA Today, Amazon will be venturing into online wholesale bulk purchases, and will be targeting physical locations like Costco and Sam’s Club.

The service dubbed Pantry, will be made available to Amazon Prime members, and will start by selling a selection of 2,000 products. The products, which are typically found in “the center of the supermarket”, will consist mainly of long life shelf items, such as cleaning supplies, paper goods, canned foods, and dry foods like cereals, and bottled beverages.

The new venture is rumored to be made available in Q1 of 2014, and follows Amazons previous endeavor called Amazon Fresh, that provides same-day doorstep delivery of fresh grocery items throughout the California area. As Pantry will specialize in products with a longer shelf life, it is expected to be made available to more areas.

The idea behind offering a smaller item selection in large quantities, will allow Amazon to sell Pantry products for less, creating a larger turnover. The service will allow prime users to fill up preset box sizes, with an attached predetermined weight limit to them. If the weight does not exceed the predetermined limit, Amazon will offer reduced shipping fees.

The step into offering items in bulk at wholesale prices shows the transition of another aspect of physical point-of-sale moving to the Ecommerce realm. As Costco and Sam’s club made Americans think differently about retail, Amazon will be doing the same with wholesale.

No exact information has been confirmed by Amazon as to when and how the operation will work. When asked on the subject Amazon declined comment. We are left asking ourselves as to how Amazon’s futuristic delivery system, Amazon Prime Air, will be able to deliver such large packages?

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