Amazon has announced a new program whereby you can buy things within an app on the Kindle Fire tablet using Amazon’s One-Click system. So this would be upgrades to a game, more movies, extra software, stuff like that. It’s a system that already exists in apps for Android or Apple’s iOS system, of course, so in that sense all Amazon is doing here is playing a little catch-up with platforms that have been around for a while. But there might be more going on here than just that. First, it may attract more app developers to build for the Kindle Fire tablet, knowing that they can make money beyond the initial sale of the app. Secondly, it makes more money for Amazon, which stands to take a 30% cut of each sale. But I think most importantly, it transforms the app into a retail vehicle like never before. Amazon thrives on retail, on selling things, and would love to sell a lot more digital things because they don’t have to worry about warehouses and the robots that work in those warehouses. If apps are developed around making the shopping experience easier, more rewarding, and generally better than the web, then Amazon has sort of built a new retail platform, right?
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