“Amazon is staking a claim in the appliance market in a big way in a partnership with Sears Holdings.
The embattled retailer announced it will sell its prized Kenmore-branded appliances on Amazon. The deal opens the way for the broadest distribution to date of Kenmore products outside of Sears stores and its websites. Distribution will be nationwide, and Sears Home Services and Innovel Solutions units will provide delivery, installation, and other services.”
So why did Sears wait so long? Did Sears consider Amazon an enemy all this time? Other retailers such as Children's Place have put the enemy thoughts aside and figured out how realize the value of Amazon for extending their channel offering and growing sales. As marketplaces grow and legacy brick and mortar retailers struggle, brands will seek to leverage Amazon's devout customer base and breadth of ways to sell. Sears is an example with Amazon and Abercrombie is now example with Alibaba's Tmall. It will just take more time for other brands to come around.
“As an added feature, Sears will sync its full line of Kenmore Smart appliances with Amazon’s Alexa. The integration means that customers will able to control the appliances with a voice command. ”
Kudos to Sears for seeing the potential of the Alexa line.
Image by: Steve Lovelace