Walmart has become the second large U.S. retail chain to announce that it will stop selling Amazon Kindles, after Target made a similar announcement in May.
Reuters first reported the news, citing a memo that Walmart sent to store managers on Wednesday. “We have recently made the business decision to not carry Amazon tablets and eReaders beyond our existing inventory and purchase commitments,” the memo read. “This includes all Amazon Kindle models current and recently announced.”
Walmart confirmed the change to Reuters and it appears to extend both to Walmart’s website and its stores.
The chain is still selling Barnes & Noble’s Nook as well as some other e-reader brands.
As with the change in Target’s policy, it’s unclear why Walmart stopped carrying Kindles. But the company is working hard to beef up its own e-commerce strategy. The company recently built its own shopping search engine, which it is now deploying on Walmart.com, and it takes cash for online purchases. Meanwhile, Amazon is trying to sell as much Amazon.com content to Kindle device users as possible. (The company is even selling physical products through Kindle Fire apps.) So it makes sense that Walmart would not want to turn over more sales to a competitor.
