Internet retail giant Amazon.com has begun offering loans to small businesses that sell their goods through its site, according to press reports. The company says the loans will help its online sellers increase their sales, which, coincidentally, would increase Amazon’s sales.
From a Reuters article:
The new program is called Amazon Lending and sellers on the company’s marketplace have been sent emails offering loans from Amazon Capital Services Inc, a unit of Amazon, according to a merchant who received such an email from the company recently. The merchant did not want to be identified because Amazon has not announced the program publicly.
The company says this will help small merchants who have trouble finding credit in the wake of the financial crisis. The loans are only available to sellers and compete with other small business lenders such as Kabbage.
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