Amazon Opening First U.S. Retail Store in New York
According to a recent report from the Wall Street Journal Amazon is planning to follow the lead by Apple and Microsoft in opening their first retail store in New York, USA. However, the retail space will be very different from those of other retail stores in the area which includes the famous Macy's store just down the street.
The online retailer which is credited with putting many a small local bookstore out of business due to its huge online e-commerce site is now going in the opposite direction by entering retail.
The store is expected to be a “pop-up” store which is designed to handle same day deliveries and returns in the busy state of New York, plus act as a small retail space for customers to visit too. Essentially the store will act as an Amazon Locker system where customers can collect online orders themselves and return items more directly instead of having to package, pay for deliver (sometimes Amazon offers free returns) and then find the time to get to the U.S. Postal Service during work hours to send the item off.
The same process has been going strong in the U.K. for a while where lockers can be used for deliveries and collections by Amazon.co.uk either via their own lockers or through those operated by third parties who charge a separate fee for their use one time. Those locker facilities have been situated in small local convenience stores known as newsagents and smaller supermarkets like Co Op Supermarket chain stores who receive money for the use of part of their retail space.
The first store will be situated just across from the Empire State Building at 7 West 34th Street. The physical store will be more than a simple locker system and include some limited inventory most likely including the Amazon line of FIRE tablets, FIRE phone and Kindle e-readers which users would benefit from being able to try out before they pay for them. The ability to touch and test the product before purchase has always been something that Amazon has lacked and this is a step in that direction for the e-commerce giant.
The ability to control the way that their own store is run could well be one of the main motivations here. Apple have done well with being able to demonstrate their products for people who wish to visit. Amazon may well be looking to offer the same option with their own technology. The option to offer collections and returns using a locker system is a bonus which adds one more deliver and return option convenience for its customers.
Amazon have yet to confirm that the information in the Wall Street Journal piece was correct. However, they did not deny it either; they just said they had made no official announcement about it.
