Its a testament to how well-made Amazon s (NASDAQ: AMZN ) flagship website is
that it barely has changed during the past decade. It has been built upon, of
course. In the past two years alone, Amazon.com has grown to incorporate
cloud-based music service Cloud Player, and Amazon Prime has brought streaming
video to the site . There have been cosmetic upgrades, security updates and
improvements to once-revolutionary features like product recommendations. But
despite those many shifts, Amazon.com looks and operates very similarly today as
it did in 2001. This fall, though, Amazon finally will change. And while change
is necessary, the company is taking a real risk in altering its main stage.
According to a Monday report in The Wall Street Journal , Amazon is deep in the
testing process of a new version of its Web home that will bring the stores
design in line with more contemporary design. The text-heavy and dense layout of
current Amazon pages, littered with tiny print and links to other parts of the
site, will be replaced by a more open design with more white space, a larger
search window for finding products, and revamped shopping cart and wishlist
tools. While theres no specific opening date for the new Amazon yet, it will
come this fall as the company introduces new features and changes gradually. The
cosmetic shift is a welcome one, but its secondary to the redesigns true
purpose: rebuilding Amazon for the tablet age. The new layout is intended to
make all of Amazons services from buying shampoo to reading e-books through the
Kindle store easier to access on a 7- to 10-inch touchscreen. Now that Amazon
is preparing to take on Apple s (NASDAQ: AAPL ) iPad with a tablet of its own ,
its more important than ever that the companys retail operation is the best
around. That is precisely why it is so risky for Amazon to redesign its website
this fall. Amazon might be a $94 billion company with more than 30,000 employees
and a stellar customer service record, but it still could be doing too much at
once. Its a given that almost all technology releases are hampered with glitches
and mistakes new websites crash under the strain of too much traffic, new
services suffer unforeseen errors. Even if it is only incorporating one new
feature at a time, rather than introducing a full-featured overhaul all at once,
Amazon could experience gaps in time when customers orders are completed. Access
to paid services like the aforementioned Amazon Prime and Cloud Player could go
down, resulting in frustrated customers. Amazon is no stranger to technical
troubles. The companys Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) service and Relation Database
Service suffered performance issues at Amazons data centers in April. Beyond the
technical jargon, that meant other websites and business like Reddit and
Foursquare that use Amazons hosting services were offline for a significant
period of time. The incident didnt affect Amazons website or retail operation,
but it demonstrates that even a company as big and reliable as Amazon isnt safe
from the inherent failings of technology. Amazon has a lot going for it heading
into the holiday season and 2012. It has spent heavily throughout the year to
expand and develop new services. At a rumored $250, Amazons Google (NASDAQ: GOOG
) Android-powered tablet is priced perfectly to take on Apples iPad. But the
companys retail business and its smooth operation is more important than any of
its other initiatives. Change is good, but Amazon needs to tread carefully. As
of this writing, Anthony John Agnello did not own a position in any of the
stocks named here. Follow him on Twitter at
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