Hm. I really don't know the specifics of this move or its market, but: I believe there are two ways for amazon of getting a benefit out of this, in some way. T

Hm. I really don't know the specifics of this move or its market, but: I believe there are two ways for amazon of getting a benefit out of this, in some way. The first one is setting a reasonable interest rate (13% in this case) and make a benefit out of it (they have spare cash, and a very good interest rate, plus a fairly secure investment). The second one is actually investing at a lower rate (how about 5%) in their mid-sized, strong sellers, to create some growth (long-term) and increase amazon revenue (as I said, that's thinking long-term and sometimes loans won't be administered properly). Amazon can probably estimate the risk of each seller (they have a lot of information about their sellers' sales and additional information about almost everything else too!), so that would be clever for them. It sort of surprises me that amazon is putting such an interest rate, as the only benefit I can see this way (instead of other ways of getting a traditional loan) are probably 'amazon benefits' (if any), as it might be faster / more flexible / less painful than a different kind of capital loan. And for Amazon, it's more of a way to get some easy money out of a pile of cash (which I presume they have), and not another creative way to keep strengthening their business.