Best Buy joins forces with web rival Amazon
Fire-edition smart TVs to be sold exclusively through retailer’s stores
BELLEVUE, WASH.— Amazon has built its brand as a digital marketplace, but it’s increasingly clear that it also needs a big physical presence to sell the devices that will further knit customers into the Amazon ecosystem.
A deal announced Wednesday that Best Buy will exclusively sell Amazon Fire-edition smart televisions suggests that it can no longer achieve the scale it wants without access to more brick-and-mortar stores.
In a rare sit-down meeting with a small group of reporters on Tuesday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made the announcement together with Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly.
Best Buy will begin selling 11 models of the Fire TV in the U.S. this summer, and later this year in Canada. The new TVs are made by Toshiba and Best Buy Co.'s own brand, Insignia. The companies did not say how much they would cost. The TVs will have Amazon Fire TV built in, allowing users to search for and watch broadcast TV, or choose from a catalogue of streaming TV episodes and movies from Netflix, Prime Video, HBO, PlayStation Vue, Hulu and other streaming sites.
The TVs will also include a voice-activated remote with Alexa, Amazon’s voice-enabled assistant, and are set up to pair with any Echo device, allowing users to issue commands to their television via their Echo.
Bezos and Joly made their announcement in a small room designed for demonstrating television sound systems at the back of a Best Buy in Bellevue, Wash. The Amazon CEO said he was excited by the possibil- ities because a Fire TV-enabled television gives consumers the convenience and simplicity they want in the increasingly important smart TV segment.
“The data is that it’s growing something like 70 per cent year over year, so it’s also a natural place for us to partner together because it’s something custom- ers are very interested in,” Bezos said.
The Fire TV Edition smart TVs will be available exclusively in Best Buy stores and on BestBuy.com.
In a first, they will also be sold on Amazon, with Best Buy acting as a third-party seller on the site. Best Buy and Amazon have a long history that goes back to the Kindle reader. Today, about 700 Best Buy stores feature an Alexa showcase table where shoppers can see how Alexa works, especially with smart home products, said Joly.