Amazon is ready to shutter Book Depository, an internet bookstore and competitor it acquired back in 2011.

The information comes scorching on the heels of a swathe of cutbacks on the web large, with two separate rounds of layoffs impacting at least 27,000 folks throughout varied divisions including its highly profitable AWS cloud unit and and its units and books companies.

Based out of Gloucester, the U.Ok., in 2004 by Andrew Crawford and Stuart Felton, E-book Depository (initially referred to as The E-book Depository) was a direct competitor to Amazon’s flagship on-line bookselling enterprise, transport hundreds of thousands of books to readers in additional than 100 international locations. On the time of the acquisition, some feared that it signalled a tightening of Amazon’s “stranglehold” over the U.Ok.’s on-line ebook commerce, a concern which will have had greater than a bit of basis. Nevertheless, regardless of trade protests, the deal finally received regulatory approval, with the Workplace of Honest Buying and selling (OFT) affirming on the time that E-book Depository wasn’t a real competitor owing to its relative measurement.

Within the intervening years, Amazon has executed little to combine E-book Depository, from a branding perspective a minimum of. Certainly, there has by no means been any seen indication on E-book Depository’s web site that it’s owned by Amazon, an method that it has taken to different comparable acquisitions it has made within the area equivalent to Goodreads, a social studying platform it bought in 2013.

Shutting store

First reported by publishing trade commerce outlet The Bookseller earlier today (paywalled), E-book Depository has now posted a closure announcement on its website, revealing that it’s going to stop to exist after April 26, 2023. Clients will nonetheless have the ability to place orders on-line till noon (BST) on that day, and the corporate mentioned it is going to fulfil all orders and proceed to offer help by way of June 23, 2023.

In fact, none of this could actually come as a lot of a shock given actions elsewhere at Amazon in latest instances, notably with Amazon CEO Andy Jassy beforehand confirming that its books enterprise can be hit by the layoffs.

Elsewhere although, Amazon confirmed a few weeks back that it was shuttering esteemed digital camera assessment website DPReview, one other U.Ok.-based entity that it had bought initially in 2007. And final 12 months, Amazon revealed it was shuttering dozens of physical retail locations within the U.S. and U.Ok., together with its brick-and-mortar bookstores, whereas it’s additionally pulling the plug on a few of its cashierless Amazon Go shops. The corporate can be within the means of winding down its consumer-focused file-storage service Amazon Drive.

It’s not clear how many individuals labored on the E-book Depository facet of its enterprise, or whether or not any of them can be redeployed elsewhere. An Amazon spokesperson merely confirmed to TechCrunch that they’ve “taken the troublesome choice to shut E-book Depository,” with out offering any additional particulars.