Apple has signed a deal with Amazon to allow the e-commerce giant to begin selling Apple’s latest iPhone and iPad devices, CNET reports. Amazon announced the news today, noting that it will soon begin selling the 2018 iPad Pro models, along with the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and Apple Watch Series 4, although the deal appears to be limited to only the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan and India at this point. The full lineup of Beats headphones are also included in the deal, which will also now require anyone selling Apple and Beats products on Amazon’s marketplace to be an Apple-authorized reseller.
Not surprisingly, however, the deal doesn’t include Apple’s HomePod, which of course competes against Amazon’s own Echo devices; Amazon took a similar approach to the Apple TV back in 2015, banning it from the Amazon marketplace and only relenting late last year when the Amazon Prime video app landed on the device.
Sellers who currently list Apple products on Amazon’s third-party marketplace have been notified that they have until Jan. 4, 2019 to become Apple-authorized resellers, otherwise their listings will be removed.
The agreement however does not include Amazon’s Renewed program for certified refurbished electronics. The new deal should ensure that Apple products listed on Amazon are now sold at consistent market prices, and ensure a more stable inventory of products, but it also helps Apple close off a popular channel through which many gray market sales were being made, such as folks flipping iPhones at inflated prices on launch weekends — a move that is in line with Amazon’s gradual tightening up of its online marketplace to ensure that sellers are working directly with the brands that they list.
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