Aiming for a bigger presence in brick-and-mortar retail, Amazon plans to open “several” multipurpose shopping venues similar to department stores in the US, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The stores will sell household items, electronics and apparel, showcasing Amazon’s private-label merchandise, the newspaper said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Some of the first stores are expected in California and Ohio, according to the report.
An Amazon spokesperson said: “We do not comment on rumors and speculation.”
The move would come on the heels of Amazon’s 2017 acquisition of the Whole Foods Market grocery chain for $13.7 billion (£10bn), which significantly expanded the e-commerce giant’s presence in physical retail. Whole Foods has seven supermarkets in the UK.
At around 30,000 square feet, the new shops would be far smaller than traditional department stores but bigger than most existing physical retailers in the company’s network, which includes bookstores and smaller grocery shops.
Analysts pointed to a number of strategic reasons for Amazon’s planned expansion into physical retail, including the desire to boost sales in apparel, home furnishings and other product lines and a recognition that the “future of retail is multichannel” rather than primarily online, GlobalData Retail’s Neil Saunders said in a note.
“The move by Amazon will be experimental at first,” Saunders said. “However, if it gets rolled out in a serious way, it is very bad news for traditional department stores.”
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