Hm. I really don't know the specifics of this move or its market, but: I believe there are two ways for amazon of getting a benefit out of this, in some way.<p>The first one is setting a reasonable interest rate (13% in this case) and make a benefit out of it (they have spare cash, and a very good interest rate, plus a fairly secure investment).<p>The second one is actually investing at a lower rate (how about 5%) in their mid-sized, strong sellers, to create some growth (long-term) and increase amazon revenue (as I said, that's thinking long-term and sometimes loans won't be administered properly). Amazon can probably estimate the risk of each seller (they have a lot of information about their sellers' sales and additional information about almost everything else too!), so that would be clever for them.<p>It sort of surprises me that amazon is putting such an interest rate, as the only benefit I can see this way (instead of other ways of getting a traditional loan) are probably 'amazon benefits' (if any), as it might be faster / more flexible / less painful than a different kind of capital loan. And for Amazon, it's more of a way to get some easy money out of a pile of cash (which I presume they have), and not another creative way to keep strengthening their business.