Amazon has started selling its Kindle online in Brazil, expanding from e-books into retail for the first time in Latin America’s biggest and most challenging e-commerce market. By shipping its e-reader devices across this immense country, Amazon will now get a taste of Brazil’s notorious logistics problems, widely seen as a deterrent for a full-fledged retail operation like the one it has in the US. The world’s largest online retailer launched an Internet bookstore in Brazil in 2012, a low-risk landing on this $11 billion emerging e-commerce market.
Amazon has started its first Latin American physical goods operation by selling Kindle devices to Brazilian consumers. The e-commerce giant started to sell Kindles from Friday (7). This follows the launch of the Brazilian website in December 2012, which – similarly to its current operation in Mexico – only sold e-books. At the time, the company chose to sell Kindle devices through partnerships with local Brazilian retailers. There are three Kindle versions available for purchase on the Amazon Brazil website. The basic version (Wi-fi, 6-inch display) is available for R$299 ($125); the Kindle Paperwhite is retailing for R$480 ($200) and the Paperwhite 3G costs R$700 ($292) to Brazilian consumers. This compares with the US prices of $69 for the most basic version of the Kindle, $119 for the Paperwhite model and $189 for the Paperwhite 3G.