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A32 FEATURE
Tuesday 2 May 2017
5 reasons Amazon is experimenting with physical stores

ANICK JESDANUN Robert Hetu, a retail ana-
AP Technology Writer lyst at Gartner, says online
NEW YORK (AP) — Is the on- customers tend to go to
line giant of retail also look- a website knowing what
ing to conquer physical they want to buy. By con-
stores? trast, customers visiting a
Amazon has been dab- physical store often make
bling in physical retail since impulse purchases, even if
2015, during which time they go in with something
it’s opened a half-dozen specific in mind. Amazon
bookstores that double as could learn more about
gadget emporia, a score that serendipity from its
of campus bookstores that stores, and perhaps find
don’t sell books and a con- better ways to increase im-
venience store without ca- pulse buying online, Hetu
shiers. For now, its efforts says.
seem largely experimental, MAKE CUSTOMERS DO THE
though that may not be WORK
true for long. Amazon is scheduled to
Although the company al- open its 20th book-less
ready dominates e-com- campus bookstore next
merce, 90 percent of world- week in Cleveland. Stu-
wide retail spending is still dents order textbooks and
in brick-and-mortar stores, In this Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015, file photo, customer Kirsty Carey, left, gets ready to swipe her credit dorm furnishings online and
according to eMarketer. card for clerk Marissa Pacchiarotti, as she makes one of the first purchases at the opening day come to these stores to
for Amazon Books, the first brick-and-mortar retail store for online retail giant Amazon, in Seattle.
Amazon has the chance to Associated Press pick them up. The central-
ized pickup location reduc-
inventory into these stores; azon’s entry “an acknowl- es shipping expenses.
Amazon figures you can edgement of the inability The company is also testing
just order everything else of the internet to provide a grocery pickup service
from your phone. a certain retail experience at two locations in Seattle.
Amazon also devotes a that book buyers enjoy.” Once it launches, Prime
lot of space to its Kindle e- That includes spontaneous members will be able to
readers, streaming TV de- conversations with fellow order groceries online and
vices and other gadgets, shoppers on what they’re visit one of these stores for
so you can try them out reading, and having a pickup, skipping the aisles.
before buying. Tutorials are book cover or blurb grab Crews will even bring orders
also offered on weekends. you as you walk down the to the car. It’s cheaper than
Wedbush Securities analyst aisle. door-to-door deliveries.
RETAIL TECHNOLOGY
In this Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015, file photo, employees smile as they Amazon already makes
unlock and open the door to the first customers at the opening heavy use of robots at
day for Amazon Books, the first brick-and-mortar retail store for warehouses to fulfill online
online retail giant Amazon.
Associated Press orders. Now Amazon is try-
enue increased 23 percent ing to bring automation
change retail with automa- to retail. The Amazon Go
tion and data-mining tech- to $35.7 billion, above ex- convenience store in Se-
nologies borrowed from e- pectations of $35.3 billion. attle uses sensors to track
commerce. Amazon doesn’t break out items as shoppers put them
“It seems counterintuitive numbers for its retail-store into baskets or return them
they are investing in any operations. Amazon Chief to the shelf. The shopper’s
physical stores when they Financial Officer Brian T. Ol- Amazon account gets au-
are blamed for the demise savsky told investors Thurs- tomatically charged.
of so many of them, but no day that the stores repre- In this Tuesday, March 28, 2017, file photo, an Amazon worker The store is expected to
cow is sacred,” says Sucha- sent “another way to reach wheels back a cart after loading a bag of groceries into a cus- open to the public soon,
rita Mulpuru, a retail analyst the customer and test tomer’s car at an AmazonFresh Pickup location in Seattle. after a test with Amazon
in Charlotte, North Caro- what resonates with them.” Associated Press employees.q
lina. He said the company has
Amazon’s offline ambitions been pleased with the re-
could even boost Amazon’s sults, but he didn’t elabo- Michael Pachter says physi-
online operations further, rate. Exactly what it’s learn- cal bookstores are good
even though they seem to ing, and what it plans to do places to win Kindle con-
be doing just fine for now. with that knowledge, is the verts, as “the only people
In the first three months of next big question. who don’t have Kindles
the year, the Seattle com- A SHOWCASE FOR GAD- who should have Kindles
pany earned $724 million, GETS are luddites who also read.”
or $1.48 per share, a 41 per- At Amazon’s six physical SERENDIPITY
cent increase from a year bookstores — six more are Amazon opened its third
earlier. Amazon soundly on the way — books are bookstore in October, near
beat Wall Street’s expec- arranged on shelves face Portland, Oregon. Miriam
tations of $1.08 per share, out, even though that Sontz, CEO of Powell’s Shoppers roam through an Amazon Go store, currently open
according to FactSet. Rev- takes more space. Amazon Books in Portland, calls Am- only to Amazon employees, Thursday, April 27, 2017, in Seattle.
isn’t trying to cram its entire Associated Press