Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Seeks Divorce, $750M from Toys R Us
theodp writes "Responding to a Toys R Us lawsuit accusing Amazon of breaching exclusivity provisions of its $50M-a- year tenancy agreement, Amazon has countersued the giant toy retailer, asking the Court to terminate its Toysrus.com partnership and award it damages of more than $750M, arguing that Toysrus.com's failure to effectively choose top toys and baby products and to keep products in stock leaves Amazon with no other choice but to enable more sellers to sell these products."
...that the "other" company is Target? It makes sense; T'r'U can't keep high-demand toys in stock, so Amazon lets Target sells toys in violation of its exclusivity agreement.
Hell, with the $3.6 BILLION Target's getting for marshall Fields, I wouldn't be surprised if Target bought Amazon.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
I'm not a big Amazon fan, but it seems that if they had an agreement to allow Toysrus to sell certain items exclusively, then violate that agreement, they're in the wrong.
If Amazon's charges are true, then ToysRUs.com can't seem to operate ANYTHING. Back in 99/2000 (or 2000/2001?) they failed miserably at xmas two years consecutively. Both times relying on rather crappy ColdFusion (I had a friend with inside contacts to the web dev team at that time, and they just did not know how to scale a site - relying on CF wasn't a big help either).
So, they get rid of their net headaches, and can focus just on the business of management and fulfillment, and couldn't seem to do that right either (again, if Amaazon's charges are true).
Who do you root for here?
creation science book
Amazon tied itself toone supplier of toys, and , surprise, surprise, that supplier didn't perform. Now that they want to end the agreemnet they find their in trouble, as Toys R Us is turning out to be benifiting from this rlationship to the detrement of Amazon.
This should be a lesson to all startups not to make a pact with the devil just to increase your profile.
May the Maths Be with you!
The only one who profits from this is Law Suits are us. Just like a real divorce! Who gets the Barbie Cottage in the Hamptons? The only thing I got to keep in my divorce were the computers and the dreamcast...
The first question is whether Toys-R-Us violated any contract terms by it's behavior such as not having toys in stock or whatever. If so, Amazon may have a good position.
Even without a direct contract violation, the courts have a concept of "best efforts" which might apply. To my knowledge, the concept of best efforts was first used in a Lucy Lady Duff-Gordon case where the exclusive US licensee was required to use it's best efforts to make profits. Since Toys-R-Us had an exclusive right to sell toys on Amazon, maybe the same doctrine would apply.
Yes. As a transfan I go to TRU a lot and collect transformers. I'm sad to see them failing; they have a lot of good exclusive toys like scourge and all those generation 1 reissues.
That was during "peak periods" i.e., Christmas.
It's no secret that hot toys sell out at Xmas.
Toys'R'Us (bricks) maintained one of the highest in-stock percentages through the season. In contrast, Walmart was out of up to 25% of key items, iirc.
Sometimes you can't even choose to maintain higher inventories--suppliers have none to give.
I'd like to see the contract (if some has a link to it, pls post it). But I'm skeptical when someone countersues after breaking a contract and their basis is most simply "bad business judgment." Bad business judgment should not be adjudicated.
--
"There is a winner: the consumer. The breakup of such an anticompetitive relationship is an example of the "invisible hand" of the marketplace restoring free-market capitalism to where it belongs."
I somewhat disagree, amazons anticompetitive behavior is great for the consumer. I was searching for a movie (Waking Life) and due to a deal with borders, I was able to reserve a copy of the movie at any of the local borders stores (with addresses listed, along with how far away it is).
These kind of features are what makes amazon successful, sure we'd be better off with an open system so prices stay competitive, but until someone (pricewatch? pricegrabber? froogle?) steps up and opens up a system that actually has the whole process bundled in one easy to use page, don't expect amazon to stop dominating any time soon.
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
Of course, since that's the only time I've ordered from Amazon, I don't really have a dog in this hunt. I will therefore root for chaos!
Just a thought- sometimes lawsuits aren't done to collect money. This is retaliatory, I assume. Possibly, Amazon wants Toys R Us stock to fall. Such a fall delays investor profit taking, if only temporarily. Not sure how it affects a company's credit, ability to leverage it's transactions, etc. An insanly large (as in this case) lawsuit can be used to do damage even if it falls through later. If stock price falls enough, management might be replaced.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.