I’m beginning to think so. It’s getting to a point with all the deals that Amazon has made with other retailers to sell their products through Amazon.com that there’s not much you can’t buy from them these days. I can remember hearing all manner of retailers making the claim of being your one-stop-shopping-spot over the years as I was growing up and it’s still a popular claim today. With some retailers like Walmart or Meijers it’s even true to an extent as long as you’re happy with the limited selection of items they carry. The simple reality is that there’s only so much store space and the wider the variety of items you offer for sale the more limited the selection in each category has to be. Amazon doesn’t have to worry about floor space and by offering their virtual store front to other retailers and then collecting a fee for every sale routed through them to their partners they can make money without ever stocking some products at all.

This realization was driven home when I came across The Top 25 Weirdest Items You Can Purchase Through Amazon! a Listmania List created by Sheila Chilcote-Collins who appears to have a number of lists that she maintains at Amazon.com. Want to attract more birds to your bird feeders? Pick up a package of Bird Grub® (1,250 count) and you’ll get “100% roasted caterpillars that contain the fat, protein and potassium necessary to maintain the energy level of insect-eating birds.“ Hungry for some fresh seafood? Order up a live lobster combo meal for two and have dinner delivered to your door ready to toss in a pot. Need a gift for your nephew? How about a “Mr. Poopy the Octopus” to hang on his wall? Big fan of A Christmas Story? Get your own Christmas Story Leg Lamp. It just gets weirder from there.

I must confess to being a fan of Amazon.com for quite awhile now and they end up getting more and more of our Christmas shopping business each year in part because the prices aren’t too bad and the selection is hard to beat. As they come closer to carrying just about anything I might want to buy (short of groceries) that trend is likely to continue.

Link found via Boing Boing.