Amazon is apparently preparing its next offensive in brick-and-mortar retail with a new store format.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the group plans to open several large stores in its American home market, reminiscent of department stores and offering a wide range of products, including clothing, electronics and housewares.
Some of the first locations will be in the states of California and Ohio.
The stores are said to have an area of almost 3,000 square meters, making them one of the largest brick-and-mortar stores that Amazon has operated to date.
But that would make them smaller than traditional American department stores.
Roland Lindner
Business correspondent in New York.
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Amazon is best known as an online retailer and as such has made life difficult for traditional retailers for years. However, the group itself has recently made a number of advances in physical commerce. That started in 2015 with the opening of a bookstore. This has now become a whole chain with currently almost 25 locations. In 2017, the group bought the Whole Foods supermarket chain for around $ 13 billion, which specializes primarily in high-quality foods and operates more than 500 stores in North America and the UK.
This is the most expensive acquisition in Amazon history to date. The store concept “Amazon Go” is attracting a lot of attention in the industry. These are small grocery stores that, thanks to elaborate technology, get by without any cash registers or cashiers. There are currently 16 locations. In addition, the company has around 30 stores with the name “Amazon 4-star”, in which it offers a diverse range of products that score particularly well in customer ratings on Amazon's website. With a chain of department stores, Amazon would venture into a segment that is struggling in America as well as in Germany. Several American department store chains have recently filed for bankruptcy. Amazon achieved a total of $ 16.2 billion in sales with its brick and mortar stores last year.