The original debate about Amazon’s physical stores
Sandeep Mathrani, the CEO of General Growth Properties said Amazon.com has plans to take its Seattle brick-and-mortar bookstore experiment to hundreds of locations across the country. But the bookseller is declining comment on reports it may be planning to open more bookstores.
GGP later clarified Mathrani's comments in a statement, saying they were "not intended to represent Amazon's plans."
True or false? Knowing that Amazon rarely does something on a small scale, I would say true.
In November, Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar store in Seattle. Described as a "physical extension of Amazon.com," Amazon Books offers titles that have been chosen based on the e-commerce site's own customer ratings and sales. Books on display have a customer rating and review attached.
Its more than possible that they indeed will open hundreds of stores across the country. In addition to being a fun and curated book-browsing experience, physical Amazon stores would market their e-reader products, as well as any future phones that the company sells.
Last but not least, Amazon stores may also serve as pickup and return points for online orders, which is what the on-campus Amazon facilities that have opened on college campuses across the country do.
Whether the rumors about hundreds of Amazon stores true or false, there seems to be a new trend in retail – from on-line to off-line. Years ago, most brick and mortars retailers started investing heavily into e-commerce. Their online stores were pretty much a duplication of their in-store merchandise with occasional "web-exclusives". Today, the trend is to list on-line first and allocate valuable shelf real estate based on customer ratings and sales later.