Jeff wants you to outsource fulfillment

You might remember when Fulfillment by Amazon came up several weeks ago and a few booksellers were participating in the beta test.

The reaction among readers here was skepticism, to put it mildly.

Looks like Amazon is really starting to publicize FBA now. Here's CEO Jeff Bezos in the new issue of Business Week:

One of our booksellers who has been in our marketplace program for a long time is so excited about Fulfillment by Amazon that he said, "I'm going to sell my house, travel around the world permanently, buying books."

And here's an audio podcast about this.

Personally, I'd never trust anyone else to handle my online business unless I had totally immunity from their screwups -- in other words, I wouldn't want to take a feedback hit for Amazon's mistakes.

On the other hand, I think FBA could work for a company selling bicycle helmets or something else that's standardized. But when you get an order for a used book, there's a dozen little judgment calls ... is the dust jacket OK? ... should I send it First Class because the order's from Hawaii? ... should I insure this one? Call me a control freak, but I don't trust anyone to make those decisions for me. I screw things up often enough myself.

At the end of the Business Week interview, Bezos reveals why he has so much Darth Vader stuff on his wishlist. He says it's because of his three boys.

Uh huh.