Amazon is already opening bookstores and grocery stores, but it’s ambitions may not stop there.
The retail behemoth is considering opening electronics stores and also furniture/appliance stores, said a New York Times report this weekend citing two sources familiar with Amazon’s internal discussions.
The electronics stores would rival Apple Stores and heavily emphasize Amazon’s own devices such as the Echo. The furniture stores would include virtual reality so you could visualize the furniture or large applicances in your home.
The NY Times said, “These would not be your average Home Depots: Amazon has considered using forms of augmented or virtual reality to allow people to see how couches, stoves and credenzas will look in their homes, the person briefed on the discussions said.
Amazon is also kicking around an electronics-store concept similar to Apple’s retail emporiums, according to two of the people familiar with the discussions. These shops would have a heavy emphasis on Amazon devices and services such as the company’s Echo smart home speaker and Prime Video streaming service.”
Amazon, valued at $400 billion, considers many retail ideas, but there’s no guarantee any of them will materialize. But its brick and mortar strategy is very real. It has already opened five bookstores, its latest in Chicago, and five more bookstores are under construction.
Amazon is also opening a convenience store that doesn’t require cashiers and it’s about to open two others where you can drive up to a window to get your groceries.
The retailer believes that some items lend themselves to real demos in a real store setting.
Amazon will likely bring to brick and mortar its strategy of putting the customer first with a laser focus on making shopping as painless as possible.
Amazon sales in consumer electronics are just over $23 billion, about $7 billion behind Best Buy, according to the annual TWICE Top 100. But Amazon’s sales are rising, growing by about 28 percent in 2015.
Amazon is the number two top car audio retailer, with sales of just short of $600 million in car electronics, based on TWICE’s Top 25 Car Electronics Retailers of 2015.
Separately, Amazon will finally charge sales taxes in all states as of April 1.
Source: The New York Times
Photo: Apple Store in New Haven
Credit: Apple
Amazon is a ponzi scheme, they should be jailed with madoff.
Sears/Kmart
We don’t need any inventory, customers are not coming to the store anyway.
Only online retailers are making money.
a few misconceptions Amazon is not always the cheapest price.
Not everything you buy from them will have a factory warranty Read JL And Yamaha’s policy on online retailers. And quite frankly Electronics is a cut throat business.
You will not see car audio in an amazon retail store anytime soon if at all.
But you could see Craftsman tools if stanly makes a deal with them and Sears/Kmart folds like they think they might.
Its funny how you ahve retailers that have been around for over 100+ years fall to the side by newer retailers like Wal-mart Costco Kohls Target Best Buy and so on.
How can these business make it and what causes giants like Sears/ K-mart the Jones and Wards to fail? What did or didn’t they do to attract customers?
What is the fastest thing that turns a customer off to a store?
How they handle returns for defective product.
Yes price is important, but so’s durability. You can make a product too cheep.
I like Reebok’s they last me 5-6 years
Some other brands only last a year at best. Its imitation leather and a soft sole shoe.
I can buy both brands for about the same price, Reebok’s might cost a tad more but honestly if I get 4-5 years out of them they are a better value.
This is how you should shop for everything.
I used to buy Levie’s but they started lasting me 6 months, I can buy Arizona’s for less than 1/2 the price and get 1-2 years out of them. So its not always more money is better products.
This is the same with Electronics and cars and everything else.
Gary that all depends on the store, and how installers are paid, some bosses do not pay good. And your installers can make or break a store. My last boss was a cheapskate after x amount of years I gave up and quite that job. I’ve got more exp i car audio then most installers, I was pulling 2 knob radios out of 60’s cars in the 70’s that’s how long ago I started doing car audio.
And yes I knew installers making 60k+ a year I wasn’t one of the and it wasn’t because of talent.
And you have to admit car audio is not what it was in the 90’s we lost a large chunk of the customer base to online retailers and computer games, Kids just don’t care about the same things anymore.
Almost everything you buy today is imported from China or some third world country.
If these jobs come back we will put a lot of Robots to work. So Kids today with good eye to hand coordination might be of value after all.
as gw bush said “bring ’em on!”
g
They will still need qualified installers; selling is only part of the game. Until we can cultivate, educate and make mobile electronics installation a career that pays enough to support a family.don’t count on Amazon.
some weeks my installers make more than I do. so it is.
g
There it is… The secret is revealed… What is the driver of Amazon success…?
Amazon will likely bring to brick and mortar its strategy of putting the customer first with a laser focus on making shopping as painless as possible.
Whowuddahthunk…?