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Amazon opens 'Instant Pickup' points in US brick-and-mortar push

cnbc.com

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Re: Amazon opens 'Instant Pickup' points in US brick-and-mortar push

#31

Post by SippinLean »

Johnny555 wrote: post #16
rsynnott wrote: post #4

Some sort of mutant combination of a parcel locker service and Argos, by the look of it. Is there any US equivalent of Argos, actually? (Argos is a shop where you choose the stuff you want from a catalog, type its product number into a machine, and collect it from a counter a few minutes after).

The USA used to have "Service Merchandise" [1], which was a similar concept -- it was a "catalog showroom", you'd walk the isles, find the product you wanted and write down the code and then after you check out, you'd wait for your product to appear on a conveyer belt from the warehouse. They went out of business in the early 2000's. I don't know of any similar stores that are still in business. [1] https://en.wikipe…

I still remember seeing my SNES come down that conveyor belt.

Re: Amazon opens 'Instant Pickup' points in US brick-and-mortar push

#32

Post by DrScump »

Johnny555 wrote: post #16
rsynnott wrote: post #4

Some sort of mutant combination of a parcel locker service and Argos, by the look of it. Is there any US equivalent of Argos, actually? (Argos is a shop where you choose the stuff you want from a catalog, type its product number into a machine, and collect it from a counter a few minutes after).

The USA used to have "Service Merchandise" [1], which was a similar concept -- it was a "catalog showroom", you'd walk the isles, find the product you wanted and write down the code and then after you check out, you'd wait for your product to appear on a conveyer belt from the warehouse. They went out of business in the early 2000's. I don't know of any similar stores that are still in business. [1] https://en.wikipe…

SM was the third in that category (locally), after Consumers Distributing and Best Products. There was also one named something like DAK (not the Drew Kaplan electronics-specific thing); they had a store at Camden and Union in Campbell/San Jose.

Years earlier, there was Unity, but they had few stores and were mostly catalog.

One could argue that Sears was the original catalog+store model.

Re: Amazon opens 'Instant Pickup' points in US brick-and-mortar push

#34

Post by calvano915 »

wlesieutre wrote: post #8

Article doesn't mention this, but a big selling point is painless returns. Just drop stuff off and get your money back. IMO that makes them a much more attractive option for items like clothes that might not fit. EDIT: I might be wrong here, I assumed it was talking about Amazon locations like the one that recently opened up in my hometown, but that's "Pickup Point", this is "Instant Pickup". Pickup Points do 1-day d…

There are Amazon lockers all over the city and I definitely have found doing returns to them to be very useful. They are available 24 hours, never a line, and can fit a decent range of small-medium packages. It "just works". I don't think I will use them for delivery, except perhaps for something very high value if Amazon offers the option during checkout.
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