Los Angeles — In a crowded online arena where everyone tries to make its appear more pretty and appealing to the global community, now Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer over the weekend confirmed that it is in the process of testing a redesign for its website, a new look and feel that adds more white space to the typical Amazon layout by reducing the number of buttons and other navigational elements.
According to industry scuttlebutts the online retailer giant is preparing its site for tablets, not an all-too-great coincidence an Amazon tablet has long been rumored as in the works to compete with Apple’s iPad, and the online retailer recently released an HTML5 website called the Amazon Kindle Cloud Reader that mimics the native Kindle app built for Apple’s iPad, and is going to make its official appearance sometime in the next few weeks.
The redesign was first reported by TechCrunch, though Amazon later confirmed that it is testing the new layout to the Wall Street Journal.
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The renewed look is a pretty big shift away from the age old blue-and-white, image-heavy look that Amazon has used for years. The royal-blue bar across the top and the light-blue “all departments” menu box running down the left of Amazon.com are gone in the new design, which goes with a much more airy, white navigation bar up top and a larger search box.
Moreover, the “all departments” menu is now collapsible, activated by a button to the left of the search box, leading to a cleaner and less cluttered look.
Based on a trove of images floating around the web, the refurbished design features less clutter, more white space, larger menu navigation buttons and a re-worked search bar. The site also will emphasize features such as Instant Video, MP3s, Cloud Player, Kindle, Cloud Drive, Android apps and audio books — categories that might entice someone browsing from a tablet.
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Meanwhile, the new version of the site is slowly popping up for some users, but there has been no word as to why these users are being selected, and how many people are currently engaged in the rollout, or when the site might officially switch over to its new design for all. Amazon spokespeople remain tight-lipped.
“We are continuing to roll out the new design to additional customers, but I can not speculate on when the new design will be live for everyone,” said spokeswoman Sally Fouts in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Additionally, the remake also marks a shift toward Amazon giving its own digital products more prominence over products from other companies, the Journal’s report said.
“The new site specifically stress Amazon’s digital goods over its physical ones,” the Journal reported. “On the old site, a column of buttons leads users to both electronic content and physical goods, such as toys, clothing and sporting gear. On the new site, a single row of buttons advertises only digital books, music, video and software.”
Some of the biggest overhaul to the look and feel of the site include the elimination of the familiar left-hand column of buttons that directs users to various portals for Amazon’s digital and physical items. Goodbye, “Toys, Kids & Baby,” “Sports & Outdoors,” and all of the other categories related to tangible Amazon products. These options seem to have been relegated to a simple drop-down menu located to the left of the search bar.
Customers will be effortlessly able to purchase and view such digital content on the retailer’s tablet, people familiar with the device have said. A Forrester Research analyst indicated that a new Amazon tablet selling for less than $300 could sell as many as 5 million units in 2011 and make the device the second most popular tablet in the world after the iPad.
“Thus far, Apple has faced many would-be competitors, but none have gained meaningful market share,” Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps wrote in her findings. “Not only does Amazon have the potential to gain share quickly, but its willingness to sell hardware at a loss, as it did with the Kindle, makes Amazon a nasty competitor.”
David Selinger, a former Amazon manager and current chief executive of RichRelevance, said “as shoppers migrate to smaller, more interactive screens such as tablets, making the content dynamic and personalized to each individual consumer becomes overwhelmingly important.”
He said, “that is just what this redesign does—it puts those features front and center.” RichRevelance helps retail websites create personalized product recommendations.
However, the new Amazon site will have ripple effects on other online retailers. Amazon is the world’s biggest Internet store by far, with revenue of $34 billion in 2010. As for Amazon’s tablet, the current crop of rumors suggests that the Wi-Fi-only device will run with a multi-touch-friendly color screen around seven inches in size. The company’s alleged game plan is to launch the Android-based tablet in November for around $250 and since it is an Amazon-branded tablet, expect to see the company’s digital offerings take the spotlight on the new device.
Lastly, the move suggests that Amazon’s Cloud Player will cater up music and Amazon’s Appstore will deliver downloads, for example, and all apps will function atop a forked version of the Android operating system that carries as little mention of Google as possible.