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Amazon To Close 68 Physical Retail Locations, Including Amazon Books and 4-star Stores (techcrunch.com) 31

Posted by msmash from the end-of-road dept.
Amazon's physical retail business is suffering a major blow as the company today confirmed it will close 68 brick-and-mortar retail stores across the U.S. and U.K. From a report: This includes its Amazon Books bookstores, its pop-up shops in various markets, and its 4-star stores where customers could shop popular and highly-rated products across Amazon.com. The retailer, which began its life as an online bookseller, launched its first physical bookstore in Seattle back in 2015, then steadily expanded its brick-and-mortar footprint to include more locations across the U.S. and abroad, including in U.S. states like Arizona, California, Colorado, D.C., Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregan, Tennessee, Texas, and of course, its home state of Washington.
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Amazon To Close 68 Physical Retail Locations, Including Amazon Books and 4-star Stores More

Amazon To Close 68 Physical Retail Locations, Including Amazon Books and 4-star Stores

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  • I miss Borders. I used to just hang out there and listen to music, check out a new novel, buy a coffee and listen to the occasional storyteller or local performer our local Borders used to bring in every so often. Amazon's pop ups are just too crowded and not interesting.

    Truth be told though, Amazon didn't kill Borders, people like me did. I'd hang out there often and listen to music or check out novels on the shelf, but I mostly just bought coffee. So if I'm being honest here, I got what I deserved

    • Yep. Would have to charge admission or something to keep doing that.

      I've thought the same about places that let you see products in person, like TV's or stereos. People could preview them in person, then go home and shop online for the best deal. The only way to keep that going (that I can come up with) would be to charge a little something to let you play with lots of products side by side. Or have the sellers online pay the local spots to let customers audition stuff.

      I guess another way to think about

      • You're on the right track. My local Borders at least was quite good at picking up local artists like authors to come read their books, or poets, or local musicians. Expand that a bit more with a bit higher-scale people, make it a minor event-style space and charge tickets. While you're there, maybe you pick up an album or a book? Amazon couldn't compete with that.
      • I saw an article suggesting that's what best buy does these days. Lease floor space to brands as basically showroom type experiences. So there's a microsoft hardware area, a bose area, etc each paying best buy rent. This was a while ago, so dunno if it's still that way.

        • As someone who works with retail, that what all the shops, especially supermarkets do.

          Store space is mapped down to the 10cm margin. You want shelf space at eye level? You pay. Want an in store promoter for tastings and sampling? You pay. Who funds the specials and spots in the paper leaflets by magazines? You do.

          Local shops have even stared down Nestle and Coca-Cola. Although, I am sure that Nestlé was actually retiring the product, and they worked out a way to spin it is "we're standing up to

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Hodr ( 219920 )

      I worked at a B&N back in the day. The people like you were a good draw, the food is high profit and it helped add to the "atmosphere" to have people lounging about rather than have a high paced frenetic shopping experience. It let real shoppers know they wouldn't be rushed and could browse to find something they like.

      And every once in a while someone in the group of friends who came for coffee and to look at magazines might see a $70 coffee table book they like and we would make more profit on that boo

    • Don't be too hard on yourself. I worked there in the years just before the Internet started ramping up and most of the blame has to go to corporate management. After the original owners cashed out the new corporate management was a bunch of numbers guys instead of people who wanted to compete in the business. They spent all their energy opening new stores and none on maintaining and improving the old ones. The inventory system was more and more broken, improvements in equipment only went to new stores, etc.
      • Huh, that actually gives me hope then, that a well run version of Borders (with a better monetization scheme and better way to compete with Amazon or iTunes) might have a future.
        • I understand that independent bookstores have seen steadily improving results over the last few years, even before the pandemic.

  • Original (Score:3)

    by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @06:08PM (#62320201)

    Here's the link to the original Reuter's post. TechCrunch offers nothing value-added.

    https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]

  • Spelled Oregon wrong (Score:3)

    by mveloso ( 325617 ) on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @06:10PM (#62320217)

    It's Oregon, not Oregan.

  • Get rid of the stores too, Look! ma!! no cashiers!!!
  • The reuters' article says "all 68", the Tech crunch just says "68". Can we trust msmash that the all was unnecessary? Does Amazon have more 4star stores?

  • No surprise .... (Score:3)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @06:48PM (#62320335) Journal

    I remember when I lived in Maryland, I went to Amazon's book store in Bethesda. It seemed like almost nobody was going in the place except to drop off product returns, because Amazon allowed dropping them off there to get credit for them. (Kohl's department stores have been doing the same thing more recently.)

    They weren't that big either. Clearly better selection at the Barnes & Noble nearby.

  • Well, yeah (Score:3)

    by thetzar ( 30126 ) on Wednesday March 02, 2022 @07:28PM (#62320465) Homepage

    "Company that killed global retail discovers global retail is dead."

    • And yet they haven't been able to break into the retail grocery industry. Something that isn't dead.

  • I'm surprised the 4-Star Store didn't take off. I had the same idea a couple of years before Amazon opened them. It seemed like a great place to browse high quality merchandise.

    I will admit that, despite liking the idea, I never visited one.

    • I visited the 4-Star Store near me for the first time last month. I was unimpressed. I would say at least half the floor/wall space was books. I guess if I was looking for a specific book and found it was on the shelf at the 4-Star Store I might go there to pick it up early, but to go there to browse the shelves to see what was in stock wouldn't be a very productive use of my time.

      About a quarter of the rest of the space was for kitchen items. Nothing exceptional to see. Another quarter was kids toys.

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