Amazon Considers Buying Some Toys R Us Stores (bloomberg.com)

According to Bloomberg, Amazon has looked at the possibility of expanding its retail footprint by acquiring some locations from bankrupt Toys R Us. "The online giant isn't interested in maintaining the Toys R Us brand, but has considered using the soon-to-be-vacant spaces for its own purposes," reports Bloomberg. From the report: Such a move would let Amazon quickly expand its brick-and-mortar presence, coming on the heels of buying Whole Foods and its more than 450 locations last year. The Seattle-based company also has opened its own line of bookstores and a convenience-store concept. Additional stores would give Amazon space to showcase its popular Echo line of devices, which run on the Alexa voice-activated platform. Amazon sees voice as the next interface for people to access technology -- supplanting computer mouses and touch screens -- and the benefits may be easier to demonstrate in a real-world setting. A bigger network of stores would put inventory closer to where shoppers live, potentially enabling quick delivery to e-commerce customers. The space could also serve as a staging ground for grocery delivery from Whole Foods stores. Amazon is already planning to roll out free two-hour service to Whole Foods customers in four cities, including Dallas and Cincinnati.

Comments

Good idea

[will_die]

After all having all those brick and mortar stores has done wonders for Barnes and Nobles and Waldenbooks.
If they are going to make into stores they would need to compete with Target and Walmart and from what I remember of the Toy R Us stories they were not big enough.

Re:Good idea

[DontBeAMoran]

The stores will be big enough because Amazon has precise data about what sells the most in a given area/city.

Re:Good idea

[KixWooder]

It may not be their main way of selling, but Apple stores are the most profitable locations per square foot of any retail space, of any industry. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/2...

Re:Good idea

[PolygamousRanchKid]

After all having all those brick and mortar stores has done wonders for Barnes and Nobles and Waldenbooks.

Who says that Bezos is planning on using them for stores . . . ?

Now that the Zuck has been knocked out as the darling candidate for the 2020 presidential election, maybe Bezos is planning to run?

All those empty stores in prime locations would make excellent campaign local HQs.

Actually, considering the latest Facebook scandal . . . I believe Oprah orchestrated it all to eliminate the Zuck as competition to her.

Re:Good idea

[mikael]

Sometimes it works just as well the other way round. Look at Amazon to see all the different products available and what features they provide. Then go to the local store, order that item and pick it up at a convenient time. I do this with new parts for my PC's - I prefer to just walk into the store and get the memory chips, HD drives and CPU's rather than risk having them lost in the post.

Going forward...in reverse.

[geekmux]

"The Seattle-based company also has opened its own line of bookstores...A bigger network of stores would put inventory closer to where shoppers live, potentially enabling quick delivery..."

So, Amazon defines progress as essentially converting themselves back into the very brick and mortar model they decimated? Putting inventory "where shoppers live"? Don't make that bullshit sound like it's some 21st century cutting edge concept; it's how the world did business for the last few thousand years.

Big stores tend not to understand their customers

[HannethCom]

You would think that with all the data big stores collect, they would know their customers better.
Target in Canada didn't fail because of competition. It failed because it didn't secure it's supply chain and didn't have the products people wanted.
Best Buy is failing for not understanding their customers, even though they are quite vocally being told they don't appreciate being treated like criminals. Also they are failing in Canada because they are not providing the products people want, where they want them. This dispite buying out FutureShop, including the data of exactly what stores were thriving and what they were selling.
We can also see Indigo failing because while Chapters was more convenient than Amazon, Indigo removed transfers from other stores and made the online experience painful.

Target in Canada was one big clusterf***

[knorthern knight]

> Target in Canada didn't fail because of competition. It failed because it
> didn't secure it's supply chain and didn't have the products people wanted.

Let's start at the beginning...
* Walmart buys bunch of Woolworth/Woolco stores in Canada http://articles.latimes.com/19...
* ***KEEPS STORES OPEN***
* this maintains the supply chain and customer base
* renovates a store one section at a time, keeping 3/4 of the individual store open at all times
* when the "rolling renovation" of the store was finished, a sign company came out, and replaced the "Woolco" sign with a "Walmart", and the store never skipped a beat in the process

* Target buys a bunch of Zellers leases
* ***THE IDIOTS SHUT DOWN ALL THE STORES FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR***
* chase away former customers, who now get used to shopping elsewhere
* former suppliers either go out of business, or find business customers elsewhere
* after an entire year of gutting the old stores, they re-open
* now they have to beg all the former customers to come back (didn't work)
* and they try to ramp up supply chain for an entire store chain all at once (didn't work)

If you ever want to write a "How *NOT* to expand into another country" book, Target is the obvious case study.