Amazon, Toysrus Fight Gets Nastier
from the there-goes-that-plan dept
Last month we wrote about the surprising lawsuit from Toysrus.com against Amazon.com. The two companies had been happy partners for years — and the relationship between the two (where Amazon ran the website for Toys ‘R’ Us) was often used as an example of a way that the two companies probably saved each other. However, part of the deal included Toysrus.com paying Amazon $200 million for “exclusivity.” They claimed Amazon was violating that exclusivity by allowing its independent merchants sell toys and baby goods online as well. It’s pretty obvious that this would be nearly impossible for Amazon to stop, and would definitely be bad for business. Still, Toysrus claims that after trying to “settle” the manner peacefully, they were forced to sue. Now Amazon has hit back. Instead of just responding to the lawsuit, though, they’ve knocked it up a notch: claiming that Toysrus.com has failed to live up to their end of the contract as well and trying to dissolve the contract between the two companies. Amazon claims that Toysrus.com has done a bad job picking the top toy products, and an even worse job keeping popular products in stock. These days, Amazon probably is in a position to go it alone without too much trouble. Toysrus.com, however, may be in a bit more trouble if they want to recreate a quality e-commerce site without much notice.
