In the traditional bookstores that have gradually declined in recent years, Amazon has successfully started with online business and become an e-commerce giant. By 2015, Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar bookstore in Seattle, and since then it has opened dozens of bookstores in other parts of the United States, but its offline retail business has gradually grown.
Image from: Amazon
Not long ago, Amazon announced plans to close Amazon Books (Amazon physical bookstores), Amazon Pop Up (Amazon pop-up stores) and Amazon 4-star (Amazon four-star stores, mainly selling online four-star products) in the United States and the United Kingdom, for a total of 68 stores. The exact closing date varies by location, and Amazon will notify customers of the closing date via signage.
Amazon also said it would help employees affected by store closures find new positions at the company and would also provide severance pay for employees who did not want to remain at Amazon.
While dozens of stores are about to close, Amazon is not leaving offline retail, but rather focusing on other brick-and-mortar retail businesses, including grocery stores Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market, as well as the recently launched clothing store Amazon Style, and the unmanned grocery store Amazon Go.
Image courtesy of Wembley Park
Whole Foods Market is a grocery store chain that Amazon acquired for more than $10 billion in 2017, after which Amazon launched the fresh food store Amazon Fresh, which is also a grocery store, but the two are slightly different.
Amazon Fresh works with local farmers to provide fresh fruit, vegetables, and groceries. Whole Foods Market is one of the largest natural plant food chains in the United States and can buy many organic foods.
Image courtesy of Whole Foods Market
Grocery stores are new compared to Amazon's previous e-commerce, but in the grocery space, Amazon doesn't seem to be creating a differentiation that sets it apart from many competitors. In order to achieve the "ambition" of the retail business, Amazon is also working on it.
Currently, Amazon has introduced unmanned cashier "Just Walk Out Shopping" technology in some Whole Foods Market, Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go stores. Customers can identify and settle when they enter and leave the store by scanning the in-store code or by using Amazon One, a contactless identification and payment system that hovers over the palm of their hand.
Multiple cameras in the store track customer identity and merchandise, through the camera combined with computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning, "Just Walk Out Shopping" technology can identify the customer's removal from the shelf, and finally send the customer a bill. In the whole process, customers do not even need to scan the product barcode to complete the settlement, shopping has a different experience.
Image courtesy of Supermarket News
In addition, in Amazon Style, a physical fashion store that Amazon will open, there are plans to use algorithms to suggest to customers what they should try on.
The closure of stores this time is a turning point in Amazon's business, and I don't know what kind of new development this adjustment of the physical retail development strategy will bring to Amazon.
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