The theme of my column this week is prompted by the recent launch of a new Irish sales portal (amazon.ie). In the past, when Irish consumers used the Amazon web site to purchase goods, it was the UK portal (amazon.co.uk) that served them. One of the inconvenient consequences of Brexit was that many of the third-party British selling partners using Amazon decided that customs hassle associated with selling into Ireland, a relatively small market, was not worth it. So something had to be done about that.

To unpack what is going on here we have to step back and reflect on how the phenomenon of e-commerce took the retail world by storm. In 1994 Jeff Bezos, an investment banker, set-up a system to sell products using the then relatively new World Wide Web. Initially he focused on books, since these were products whose simple physical characteristics were already standardised by book publishers (a Penguin book is a Penguin book), and were unlikely to be damaged in the post. Even better, he could do deals with publishers to convert physical books into electronic (or Kindle) versions and bypass the cost of printing. Out of such simple beginnings Bezos’ operation grew phenomenally and now has a dominant position in the world of on-line retailing.

Shrewd move

Starting with books was a shrewd move since it enabled Amazon to establish its reputation and efficiency before moving into other........

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