More and more brick and mortar stores such as Walmart, Target, and others are investing in online technology allowing online purchases to be shipped to the purchaser's nearest store for local pick up. So how does an e-commerce giant like Amazon respond?
According to the website TimesOnline.com, Amazon, in response to the growing customer demand for site to store shipping from brick and mortar retailers, appears to be secretly searching for high profile properties to setup brick and mortar shops of their own. Techflash.com also sees Amazon's brick and mortar presence as a great way to show off the Amazon's kindle reader. Quoting a source from Maximumpc.com "When Amazon was just selling books and CDs that fitted easily through the letterbox it was fine to be a web-only business, but now it has branched out into everything from children's bikes to electricals it believes it could boost sales by having stores that offer a collection point for shoppers. It will probably be an Argos-sytle operation," said a source familiar with Amazon's proposals.
Depending on the markup of products for shipping to the respective stores and the cost of products being stocked in the store, I think this is a win win for consumers and Amazon. Not only does Amazon increase their business by expanding their business model but the customer gains a very respectable retailer in their community. Not to mention the creation of jobs within a jobs starved economy. With a net work of $59.1 Billion, Amazon definitely has the resources to compete in a retail market.
