I'm sure someone can find a niche for it. Stock "deal of the day" items, top sellers, small items (not worth cost of shipping but buyers willing to drive to get), and ship-to-store (lowered shipping, don't worry about shipper leaving it on porch to get stolen). Also provides a live face for service.
Amazon to Open First Brick-and-Mortar Location
21–30 of 72 posts
Re: Amazon to Open First Brick-and-Mortar Location
#22http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/09/amazon-store-manhattan/ Seems unnecessary. I guess Amazon is getting so bored making money in sane ways that they want to lose money in insane ways.
Though I agree, it does sound insane. What would they stock? They can't supply everything obviously. I think it will be a good outreach to put a face to the company you're buying from, and make it more personal. I'm sure the employees will have little Kindles so you can quickly order things in stock. And gain the confidence from buyers that are hesitant buying things from online retailers. Potentially this could hurt…
I don't think they would have too much trouble knowing what to stock, they would just look at their sales. Stock the most popular items, new releases of movies/books/games, and phones, tablets and PC's.
On the other hand, that would make them nearly equivalent to any of the other "brick and mortar" businesses. I wonder if they want to focus on showcasing their own products, like an apple store. They have been pushing the advertising on amazon fire TV and phone a lot.
Re: Amazon to Open First Brick-and-Mortar Location
#23http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/09/amazon-store-manhattan/ Seems unnecessary. I guess Amazon is getting so bored making money in sane ways that they want to lose money in insane ways.
Though I agree, it does sound insane. What would they stock? They can't supply everything obviously. I think it will be a good outreach to put a face to the company you're buying from, and make it more personal. I'm sure the employees will have little Kindles so you can quickly order things in stock. And gain the confidence from buyers that are hesitant buying things from online retailers. Potentially this could hurt…
Why not have the stock respond to people? Amazon can probably have their stock be adaptive.
Re: Amazon to Open First Brick-and-Mortar Location
#24Seems cool. Picking up from a store can be useful when it's something you're worried about sitting on your doorstep all day. Could be a great way to improve customer service as well. I'm curious as to whether the store will actually stock non-amazon products.
Re: Amazon to Open First Brick-and-Mortar Location
#25I'd be curious what proportion of public facing space would be lockers.
I imagine it'd be great to showcase flash sales and extremely high demand items. I really believe a retailer selling physical goods needs some sort of physical presence and hope this is something interesting.
Re: Amazon to Open First Brick-and-Mortar Location
#26http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/09/amazon-store-manhattan/ Seems unnecessary. I guess Amazon is getting so bored making money in sane ways that they want to lose money in insane ways.
Amazon makes a lot of money - but they also spend a lot. They have pretty slim margins.
Re: Amazon to Open First Brick-and-Mortar Location
#27http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/09/amazon-store-manhattan/ Seems unnecessary. I guess Amazon is getting so bored making money in sane ways that they want to lose money in insane ways.
In many urban areas it can be challenging to receive packages, so having a pickup spot in the middle of several million people could well make sense. Apple's flagship Manhattan store famously does quite well as a showcase for their products and helps to sell millions for them. Amazon could be doing that math that for every user we get into the ecosystem we can extract X in lifetime value from book, video and app purc…
I don't know as much about NYC geography, but if they put one of these somewhere in the loop in Chicago I would definitely use it. I would much rather spend my lunch break walking down to the Amazon pickup depot than let a package sit on my front door all day.
Re: Amazon to Open First Brick-and-Mortar Location
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have those (sans giant walls) in the UK. They are called Argos. http://girlinlondon.com/argos-inside-one-of-the-uks-most-pec... for a good description.
I thought of a similar idea one day when day dreaming at my old retail job. What if in the future, all the stores become so small, malls could house 1000s of stores. You could go in, touch the product, try it on, but they were all just display models. And than you'd order it in store, and it would be on your doorstep the next day. No need to keep inventory in the store, and you pay a much smaller rental fee. And shri…
Here in the UK that's how many shops (and some chains that are still extant) started out.
You went into the local grocers which had a counter/hatch (think post office/bank), You told him what you wanted (or he your weekly order) and he (or usually his boy) would then drop the merchandise off at your house.
The Supermarkets pretty much paid to your corner grocer (economies of scale, later opening hours, more variety of items, the ability to do your shop yourself as and when needed and the increasing wealth of the UK (cars and refrigerators)).
It would be amusing if we went back to a high tech version of that.
Re: Amazon to Open First Brick-and-Mortar Location
#29Seems cool. Picking up from a store can be useful when it's something you're worried about sitting on your doorstep all day. Could be a great way to improve customer service as well. I'm curious as to whether the store will actually stock non-amazon products.
My friend has the opposite problem--- all packages go to the apartment manager's office. And his hours are allegedly 10-5, but he leaves early all the time. She picks up her packages at an amazon locker because the manager keeps the packages too secure.
Re: Amazon to Open First Brick-and-Mortar Location
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t that against Google’s T&Cs? I’m sure a website is not allowed to present different content to GoogleBot than it does to regular users. Not sure if there’s a rule that says it can’t present different content when a user clicks on a search result vs goes directly to the website or from another referrer.
They're probably using "First Click Free". See http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/10/first-cli...
Thanks for this. Good to know about it.