Amazon.com said on Wednesday it plans to close all 68 brick-and-mortar bookstores, kiosks and toy and home goods stores in the US and UK, ending some of its longest-running retail experiments.
The news, initially reported by Reuters, marks a turning point for the company that started as an online bookstore and helped push established rivals such as Borders out of business. Amazon said it will focus more on its grocery stores and a department store concept going forward.
After opening its first bookstore in 2015, Amazon tested a range of retail ideas: cashierless convenience stores, supermarkets, and a so-called “4-star” format where it sells toys, household items and other goods with high customer ratings. .
Amazon aimed to reach shoppers in more places and bring its online touch to the real world. The company’s bookstores pulled data from its vast collection and showed what people were reading, even the reviews they left on Amazon’s website.
But the innovations were not enough to stop the march towards online shopping that Amazon itself had unleashed. The company’s “physical store” revenue – just 3% of Amazon’s $137 billion in sales in the last quarter, largely a reflection of consumer spending at its subsidiary Whole Foods – has often failed to keep up with growth in other businesses. from the retailer.
Amazon will close its 4-star operations, kiosks and bookstores on different dates and will notify customers. Workers will receive severance pay or help find jobs at any nearby company stores, such as more than a dozen Amazon Fresh grocery stores, the company said.
Amazon did not specify how many jobs will be cut.
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