Amazon.com has been down this road before: Like one-time Amazon e-commerce "partners" Toys 'R' Us and Borders before them, Target executives announced recently that the world's second-largest retailer plans to say adios to Amazon.com and "build and manage its own platform for Target.com," with an expected launch date before the 2011 holiday season.
In case you weren't aware, Amazon had been running all of Target.com's e-commerce technology operations since 2001.
Amazon had similar, long-term outsourcing arrangements with Toys 'R' Us and Borders through the years. The Toys 'R' Us partnership ended acrimoniously with a nasty lawsuit to boot.
The Borders-Amazon separation was less cantankerous when Borders execs privately decided to split in 2006 and publicly announced it in 2007. But everything since has gone horribly for Borders, already struggling when it debuted its brand-new Borders.com in May 2008.
