Last week The Wall Street Journal and others reported that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) will be opening its first brick-and-mortar store in Manhattan across the street from the Empire State Building. In addition to a retail location, the store will serve as a pick-up location for online orders as well as a mini-warehouse for same day deliveries of its most popular offerings.
Kiosks in California
Now, the online retailing giant will be opening pop-up kiosks in both San Francisco and Sacramento. The first is expected to open at Westfield San Francisco Centre, a mall located in the center of downtown San Francisco on Market and Fifth streets. The opening is set for Wednesday, Oct. 22 and will beat the NY brick-and-mortar by a good deal as Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) readies it for opening ahead of the holiday season.
“We’re excited to open new pop-up kiosks in San Francisco and Sacramento in time for the holidays so that customers can try out our new devices,” a spokeswoman said. “The team is moving incredibly quickly – already this year we’ve launched Fire TV, Fire phone, new Fire tablets, new Kindle e-readers, and a bunch of new features and services. While customers can already see our products online and at retailers like Best Buy and Staples, we wanted to provide another option to try out our full line-up leading into the holidays.”
Further moves into retail?
There is little question that Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is an online retailing giant, the question is whether Amazon is looking more to physical retail or simply taking advantage of a improving economy ahead of Christmas.
Amazon has already opened kiosks in malls to try to push its so-far unsuccessful Fire Phone and has tried to sell Kindle readers and Kindle Fire tablets from vending machines. Amazon has been quite coy about its retail plans and is certainly looking for the NY and SF locations to show them whether a larger retail push is warranted.
