Amazon on Wednesday confirmed that it is shutting down its Quidsi unit, which runs websites Diapers.com and Soap.com, due to a persistent lack of profitability there.

Quidsi was an Amazon rival in the US before the online retail made a $545 million deal in late 2010 to buy the startup.

"We have worked extremely hard for the past seven years to get Quidsi to be profitable, and unfortunately we have not been able to do so," an Amazon spokesperson said in an email reply to an AFP inquiry.

"Quidsi has great brand expertise and they will continue to offer selection on Amazon.com; the software development team will focus on building technology for AmazonFresh."

AmazonFresh lets people shop online for grocery store goods, including pet, baby and beauty supplies.

Quidsi co-founder Marc Lore went on to create another online commerce company, Jet.com, which was bought last year by Walmart for about $3 billion in a move aimed at competing with Amazon.

source: AFP