Walmart kicks Kindles out of its stores

Looking for a Kindle? Well, you won’t find one in the country’s largest retail store chain anymore.

Walmart will stop sales of Amazon’s entire line of Kindle devices. This is effective immediately, reports Reuters. That includes all Kindle e-readers as well as the Kindle Fire and new Kindle Fire HDs. This move not only includes the big box Walmart stores but also its membership-only chain, Sam’s Club.

“We have recently made the business decision to not carry Amazon tablets and eReaders beyond our existing inventory and purchase commitments,” Wamart stated in a memo to store managers yesterday.

Searching for Kindle on both Walmart and Sam’s Club official websites is currently returning zero results, which could indicate that the online store fronts are also halting sales.

The move is not at all surprising, considering that Amazon’s online store sells a variety of items you can typically find in Walmart. The Kindle Fire itself acted as a “trojan horse” of sorts for Amazon by enticing people to shop online via tablet rather than go into a brick and mortar store to make a purchase. I’d imagine Walmart wasn’t making any money off of Kindle sales, either.

Walmart is the second big box retailer to boot Amazon’s Kindles out of its stores, with the first being discount-chain competitor Target back in May.

I’m curious to find out if the lack of retail presence on retail shelves will affect Kindle sales heading into the 2012 holiday season. (Coincidentally, I purchased a Kindle for my Dad last Christmas, but only after waiting in a substantial line of people who typically wouldn’t make it into an electronics store. Walmart employees actually had to explain each product and offer a short demo before the three people ahead of me ended up purchasing something.)

Photo via Walmart Corp./Flickr