Over the past few years, I have used Amazon.com's fulfillment infrastructure to sell one of my books (The Complete M&A Handbook). It has worked extremely well.

Amazon.com sends me an email to request a quantity. I then send the books to the company's distribution center in Kentucky. At the end of the month, my bank account is automatically credited with my earnings.

It's pretty cool stuff.

Well, now, Amazon.com is moving more aggressively into the fulfillment space. It's certainly a small move. For small- and medium-size businesses, why make the huge investments for this infrastructure?

The system is called "Fulfillment by Amazon" (it's still in beta). Here's how it works: A merchant will send goods to Amazon.com, where they will be stored at $0.45 per cubic foot per month. When there is an order, Amazon.com will deal with the headaches of stuff like packing, shipping and even returns. The fees for this: $0.50 per item and $0.40 per pound.

Given the large base of merchants in its system, Amazon.com should get immediate traction on the fulfillment services. In fact, this is really a must-have for merchants - and now it can be done cost-effectively.

Also, it may help give Amazon.com a competitive edge against many e-commerce competitors, such as eBay, Yahoo and even Google.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including the Complete M&A Handbook and operates InvestorOffering.com.

Amazon.com Inside: the dot-com logistics company? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 20 Sep 2006 14:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.