Andrew Alleman reported yesterday on his blog Domain Name Wire (DNW) that Amazon had registered a slew of domains like SuppliesAmazon.com on March 28 that suggested a manufacturing or B2B play.
While big tech companies like Amazon typically don’t comment on rumor or speculation, Amazon continues to specifically hint at the launch of a B2B marketplace with over a dozen new “AmazonB2B” domain registrations that were made on March 29, like AmazonB2B.net (Whois) and AmazonB2B.org (Whois).
Amazon has already owned the web address AmazonB2B.com since 2006, but the domain has sat unused for years.
So, could Amazon be planning to compete with the likes of Alibaba.com, the world’s largest online business-to-business trading platform for small businesses?
Well, according to the company’s newest registrations it looks very promising.
On March 29, a day before the DNW news story was published, Amazon not only registered AmazonB2B dot-net and dot-org, it also registered several more domains that DNW had never spotted, so no mention was made in the story.
Here’s a look at the AmazonB2B domains that were registered, that further strengthen the idea of an AmazonB2B marketplace.
amazonb2b.asia
amazonb2b.biz
amazonb2b.ch
amazonb2b.dk
amazonb2b.fr
amazonb2b.in
amazonb2b.info
amazonb2b.it
amazonb2b.jp
amazonb2b.mobi
amazonb2b.mx
amazonb2b.net
amazonb2b.org
At the time of this story, AmazonB2B.com does not resolve to a website. But with the new “AmazonB2B” domain registrations and the earlier names spotted by DNW, it does look like Amazon is getting ready to launch its own B2B marketplace.
For now, it’ll just remain speculation.
[Updated April 1, 2012 11:01am EST:. I’ve found more AmazonB2B domain names that were registered including AmazonB2B.co (Whois) and AmazonB2B.co.za (Whois).]