How Will Amazon Local Marketplace Affect Yelp; Bob Peck Comments

Following a Reuters report stating that Amazon

is planning to launch a local services marketplace this year, SunTrusts Bob Peck commented on how he thinks it will affect Yelp, Inc.

. To begin, Peck described his vision of what a local marketplace from Amazon would look. The main takeaway from this is that he sees Amazon coming in on the transaction side similar to GrubHub or OpenTable. Moreover, he believes the ratings and reviews would be to supplement the transaction based service, and thus would not match Yelp on quality or depth. Additionally, Peck noted the potential for Amazon to partner with a third party such as Yelp to help get ratings and reviews to "critical mass". In his concluding remarks, Peck wrote, "We would not expect any impact to Yelp from Amazon's initiatives in the near-to-intermediate term but we do believe the threat warrants monitoring." The street appears to agree that Amazon local does not present an immediate threat to Yelp as the company's shares are trading up ~1.5 percent at ~$66.