Amazon Expanding With 100 Stores Across The Nation


Amazon is finally coming out of the virtual closet and joining other major companies with 100 small stores that are set to open across the nation in various mall outlets. This is a slick move by Amazon, which was best known to be a major book dealer in the beginning, only to later emerge to be the biggest retail marketplace on the web serving millions of customers around the globe.

Although Amazon is still perhaps best known for dealing in books, especially e-books, the small Amazon stores that will be opening up will be focusing on selling tech gadgets and the major digital market they have to go with it, according to Business Insider.

All eyes on this new adventure for Amazon will be on the new artificial spokesperson, or woman, for Amazon, Alexa. Or rather, the Amazon Echo that Alexa derives from. There has been a tremendous response to the Amazon Echo from consumers in the U.S., and people are really starting to respond to the many benefits that go along with owning the Amazon smart device.

By devoting these chains of Amazon stores to Alexa and her digital cousins within the company, Amazon is strategically positioning itself to outdo the pacing of Wal Mart’s empire by giving consumers the chance to buy products that are intended to be consumable for years to come. This is a win-win situation for Amazon.

By focusing the stores on the Echo, Amazon is essentially building a network of stores that consumers use to buy more products from them. That includes Alexa making a shopping list for their owner and buying the products from Amazon. That includes Alexa ordering books for consumer’s Amazon Kindles and sending the books directly to their devices. That also includes signing people up for Amazon Prime, then sending the benefits of the service directly over to the Kindle, Kindle Fire, Kindle Fire TV, Kindle Fire Stick, or even to someone’s computer.

As of right now, there are currently 21 “pop-up” stores across the nation that Amazon is operating. These are the kind of stores that you see in malls and usually encompass about 500 square feet of retail space, which is just enough to squeeze in their many gadgets that will be the sole purpose of the stores.

Customers or fans of the Amazon devices can go to a special website that shows the current store locations and the progress of other stores and where they are coming in relation to where you live.

This is something that fans of Apple products have seen before. Apple started using the pop-up stores to promote ist products, which included gadgets similar to what Amazon offers and more. Tech gadgets usually require very little space, and when a store is devoted to those specific types of products, it can usually make bank off the internet or in tiny stores like the ones Amazon is building across the nation.

This new marketing adventure for Amazon has been quietly using the test phase for the stores. Amazon has announced that the pop-ups are no longer in the beta testing phase. The Amazon pop-ups are officially a solid business venture for the online retail giant, and consumers can expect to start seeing them in all of the major markets in the near future.

Although it is unclear what the true scope of the project is for Amazon at this point, it is already known that Amazon will be putting in at least 100 stores by next year. There are also already job listings in Florida and Connecticut for openings in these stores.

[Photo by Stephen Brashear/Getty Images]

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