Amazon to Open First Brick-and-Mortar Location (opens in new tab)

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 purchases (again a way it could make sense).

Also, you can consider this maybe Amazon trying to become Walmart faster than Walmart can become Amazon. Having physical stores still counts for much in the retail sector, having one (or a bunch) would potentially give them leverage and more options. They _already_ have a massive nationwide system of warehouses and logistic centers, is it that crazy that they could move products into brick and mortar shops as well as the presumably much more complicated process of people's homes?

I'm not so sure. I think the future of consumer durables is showrooms with very little inventory but a huge number of things on display. If you want it right now, you pay full price, but if you want it delivered tomorrow (from your local amazon warehouse) then it's 10% off.

In other words you no longer 'go to the store' because it's economically inefficient to store many units of the same thing on expensive prime real estate. Instead almost all the warehouse space of existing stores is turned into floor space and they only have 1 of each item, although they keep a small stock of consumables.

Amazon has recorded a net loss 4 out of the last 6 quarters. Read into that what you will, but I don't think they're in any position to 'get bored making money'.

http://services.corporate-ir.net/SEC/Document.Service?id=P3V...

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 stores like Best Buy, or the like. If Amazon can provide a better customer service in person, than people will choose them over the other. I'll be curious to see how this plays out for them.

You mean like that phone experiment..yup.

Amazon makes a lot of money - but they also spend a lot. They have pretty slim margins.

And if you do, simply take the title, and dump it into Google. The wsj has a stupid rule where they won't require you to have an account to read the full article if your referrer is google.

I created a small greasemonkey script to set the referrer on all wsj websites to google. Works like a champ!

Yes, which are almost as useless as the "sold x million first weekend" metrics that get parrotted by media.

If the user base increased by 50% between the two releases, they can convince 50% less people to upgrade the first weekend, and still sell more the first weekend than they did last time. The sold x million certainly tells you some hard dollar number that is uninteresting, but it gives you no idea how popular the device will actually be, even though it sounds like it should.

Shut up and take my money! Can you install one of these things on my toilet?

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.

> Picking up from a store can be useful when it's something you're worried about sitting on your doorstep all day.

This is almost certainly not the main intention of this move, since a store is waayyyy more expensive than a locker and no more convenient, and Amazon has had lockers for a looong time (I can't receive packages at my house so I use the locker one block away extensively).

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.

They could easily sell displaying space too for a monthly cost.

With robot cars doing most of the work? Maybe 10 years, though it's hardly necessary that the subdivision gets build around the DC when you can build a DC close enough to the subdivision to make it worth your while.

Because they need a way to let people play with things like fire hd, and can't rely on best buy to have their best interests at heart?

That wasn't an eBay store, but her job was selling other people's junk on eBay for them. As for the future of e-commerce, it's whoever can get the product to me fastest. Brick and Mortar still wins that race, but lose on price more often than not.

Not sure why that comment got voted down. If that's wrong I don't want to be right.

See my comment above. Dump the title into google, click through and you're good. wsj won't paywall you if your referrer is google.

^