You probably knew Amazon.com Inc for that first online purchase you made. The store is known for its numerous ventures and gives a new definition to the phrase ‘have your hand in every pie.’
Currently valued at 400 billion US dollars, the company is taking on a trend that will give it a trillion dollar valuation hopefully within the next decade. The company is famed for its from-the-ground –up approach to new business ventures.
When Amazon wanted to get into the technology industry, it did not pull any stops until its online stores held its products ranging from mobile phones, e-readers, cloud storage divisions to same-day internet deliveries and the robot launched just last week. It also helps that the company plows back its yearly profit, an estimated two billion US dollars as of 2016, into its innovations. The company is successful on the online platform, but what of its retail ventures?
The Retail Side of it
Speaking to the New York Times, former Amazon general manager in the retail sector Joe Thompson remarked, “I think building physical stores is the key to the realization of Amazon’s ambition to be the first company with a trillion dollar valuation.” Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos seems to agree.
Amazon is set to launch its first two retail stores in Seattle later this year. The two stores will be located in the Ballard and SoDo Districts and will mark the company’s creation of a crack in the almost 700 billion dollar retail industry. The will also enable the Online retail magnate to make good on its promise to consumers to ‘deliver goods ordered on the online store on the same day.’
Of course, Amazon being Amazon does not just want to make retail stores; they want stores that are uniquely theirs. Sources told the New York Times on condition of anonymity that the company encourages its employees to brainstorm and put forward any ideas they have, then the management shelves some and decide to implement others. The same was the case when it came to coming up with design models for the retail stores.
Though not yet open to the public, the sources said, Amazon has stores with crazy forms of automation. For instance, there is a store which is fully automated and will operate without cashiers. The store has sensors and artificial intelligence which will ‘sense’ the appliance a customer will pick up and thereby give the client his or her due amount, eliminating the need for cashiers.
The global company is also looking into design models for proposed grocery stores. These models include the traditional cash-and-carry grocery store, home delivery grocery depots and drive-in grocery stores which will not require the driver to leave the car to get his groceries.
Amazon also plans to open more physical book stores such as the fifth one coming up in Chicago, and there is talk of building electronics emporiums like those that Apple owns. The company also has its eye on the retail market in India though all these are ideas, not plans, the company clarified.
Mr. Galloway of NYU is one of those not feeling optimistic about the future of the company in retail. “It seems to me they [Amazon] have not found a format they are willing to use on a global scale.”
