Amazon, Drugstore.com Part Company

Seattle, It’s a classic case of “He said, she said.” Or, in this instance, “They said, they said.”

On-line retail pioneers Amazon.com and Drugstore.com, partners since 2000, have split. Drugstore.com has been paying to have its products carried prominently on Amazon’s site.

While Seattle-based Amazon implied it had initiated the breakup—by being the first to send out an announcement in the form of a press release—Drugstore.com CEO Dawn Lepore was quick to leap, telling investors on the company’s quarterly conference call yesterday afternoon that she was the one who made the phone call to Amazon to terminate the agreement.

Both had their reasons to part company. According to Amazon, which owns a 14% stake in Bellevue, Wash.-based Drugstore.com, its newly built relationships with major health-and-beauty brands such as Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson made its deal with Drugstore.com unnecessary. Drugstore.com, on the hand, said that the partnership represented a small and shrinking part of its business.