According to an internal Target memo that the Verge got ahold of, the retailer will no longer be carrying Amazon’s Kindle tablets, beginning May 13th. So far, the only explanation regarding the discontinuation of the popular product was the mention of a “conflict of interest” in the recovered document.
Interestingly, just last year Nik Nayar, vice president of merchandising at Target, had only good things to say about Amazon’s product – “This was a great Black Friday for Target and for Kindle Fire, which was the bestselling tablet in our stores on Black Friday – We’re excited so many guests chose Target as their destination for the new family of Kindle devices and we’re sure Kindle Fire will continue to be at the top of wish lists this holiday season.” The Kindle branded store on Target’s site is already down, and all that can be purchased are accessories for the tablet on the site as a whole:
Again, speculation – Could the Apple store-within-a-stores that have been installed in a handful of Target locations be the cause of the “conflict of interest?” Could it be that Target is developing its own tablet? Could it be that Target realized that owning a Kindle gave users easy online access to a lot of the products they were trying to sell in their own physical stores? The Kindle is the perfect ad for Amazon retail, and perhaps Target realized that it was selling a product that was likely affecting its business.