There can be little doubt that online purchases help drive the holiday season sales rush. More and more companies are adopting the same kind of sales model that sites like Amazon and eBay use and today one big retailer officially jumped into the fray. Best Buy has already taken steps to offer plenty of help to online shoppers, including allowing people to pick things out and pay for them online. Once the items are selected customers can choose to have the item delivered to the store. They can also only browse through what is available at the store and simply head to the customer service desk to pick them up.

Now Best Buy is going the extra mile, announcing that it will launch a third party website for online purchases. This particular model is almost exactly like that of Amazon’s as they will offer other company’s products on this website. According to Best Buy, the number of products they offer on this marketplace will increase over 30 percent during the holiday season. So far, a handful of companies have signed up for the website’s launch including Buy.com, Mambate, SF Planet, ANT Online, BeachAudio.com and Wayfair. 

One of the reasons Best Buy has suffered in sales over the last few years is because customers will go to their brick and mortar stores to look at a product and then buy it through other retailers. This is how Amazon has become such a giant in the online retail business. People will see a product in a place like Best Buy and know they can most likely get the product cheaper through the third party retailers Amazon offers up. Of course Amazon is pressing its advantage with the recent launch of its daily deals site. Whether or not that site will finally leave Best Buy in the dust is anyone’s guess.

Best Buy says that much like Amazon, the third party retailers that are featured on the site will handle shipping and customer service. Also like Amazon, there will only be one shopping cart for users, meaning that they can conceivably be purchasing things from several different retailers all at the same time.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2011, taking place Sept. 13-15, 2011, in Austin, Texas. ITEXPO offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.