Why Amazon Refuses to Wear Purple Lanyards in Vegas

About 1,300 people from the online retail industry are in Las Vegas this week for the annual Catalyst Americas conference. Every attendee is sporting a name badge they were given at the registration desk, along with a purple lanyard emblazoned with the logo for the startup Jet.com—everyone except Amazon.com employees, who brought a stash of orange lanyards.

Jet, which is planning to launch a sort of online Costco later this spring with 10 million discounted products, is a corporate sponsor of the Catalyst convention. The three-day event ends on Wednesday with a presentation from Sebastian Gunningham, Amazon's senior vice president of seller services. Employees from EBay, Newegg, and other companies at the show wore the standard-issue purple lanyards. Representatives from Amazon, which has a sizable booth at the event located in the Aria Resort and Casino, were quick to swap their purple lanyards for ones featuring the online shopping giant's own logo. Craig Berman, an Amazon spokesman, didn't respond to requests for comment.