To judge just how important Amazon has become to online retailing, don’t look at its bottom line - look at the competition. First, Bertelsmann and Barnes & Noble, two proven real-world entities, jumped together in somewhat desperate fashion to beef up their online book-sales initiatives. And now a consortium of nine major e-commerce players, including CDnow and eToys, are banding together to create a new online mall called Shopper Connection - just in time for the holidays, according to The Wall Street Journal’s Tom Weber.

Because Amazon.com has what others want - “a huge base of customers who like to shop online,” according to Weber - joining forces made sense for the companies, which also include Reel.com, Preview Travel and online brokerage Datek. Weber noted that previously well-financed online mall efforts have failed and that the participants here are studiously avoiding using the term.

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