Canada’s book business acquired by Amazon.com

Amazon.com will operate Victoria's AbeBooks, the world's largest online marketplace for new, used and rare books. Recently Amazon.com purchased the book store for an undisclosed sum but an approximate price tag is estimated at $90 million to $120 million.

Both buyers and sellers are going to benefit from the deal, as it is promised by AbeBooks CEO, Hannes Blum.

"We're teaming up with the clear market leader in e-commerce," he said. "Having access to some resources from Amazon, we see huge improvement in getting more sales for our sellers . . . we can learn big-time from Amazon in that respect."

No significant changes should be expected for booksellers or buyers in the near future. Amazon is determined to run AbeBooks as a stand-alone operation based in Victoria without any staff transfer.

Besides AbeBooks will not change its brand and will retain all its websites that it hosts for Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Spain.