Amazon Will Soon Open Its First Brick and Mortar Location in New York City
Amazon will reportedly be opening up its first brick-and-mortar location at a location in New York City in time for this holiday season, expanding from the online-only business it currently does through its website.
After the emergence of showrooming, in which shoppers browse and test products at retail stores before making their final purchase online, brick-and-mortar stores began offering price matching with online retailers in order to get back in the game. Now Amazon is striking back.
The specific location of the Amazon store will be across the street from the Empire State Building at 7 West 34th St. in Midtown. Rather than being stocked full of products like ordinary stores, the location will function more like a miniature warehouse customers can visit.
It will allow for same-day delivery of certain items within New York, easy returns and exchanges (one of the big conveniences of brick and mortar), and physical customer pickups of products ordered online.
If Amazon’s store ends up carrying a wide range of photography products in the future, the NYC-based stores B&H and Adorama may find themselves with a little more competition for local customers.
Image credits: Header graphic based on photograph by Alwbutler
