Amazon’s Thanksgiving deal: get an Echo digital assistant with your turkey
Seattle/Chicago — Amazon.com is betting that people in the US shopping for discounted organic Thanksgiving turkeys at Whole Foods this week may decide to pick up an Echo digital assistant as well. The idea is simple: those gadgets will linger in homes a lot longer than leftovers and probably generate far more money for Amazon than the few bucks it shaved off the price of those birds. This gifting season, its first since acquiring natural grocery chain Whole Foods Market, Amazon is expanding far beyond its typical year-end strategy of winning wallet share from rivals Wal-Mart Stores, Target and eBay. The company is using the holiday moment and its broader bricks-and-mortar presence to further a lead in the emerging market for voice-activated smart home-speakers, hoping to leave tech rivals Google and Apple in the dust. Online spending for the holidays in the US is forecast to surge 14% to $107.4bn, a slight acceleration from the 11% gain posted last year. While Amazon is projected to...
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