All Physical Amazon Books, 4-Star and Pop-Up Shops to Close
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"We’ve decided to close our Amazon 4-star, Books, and pop-up stores, and focus more on our Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, Amazon Go, and Amazon Style stores and our Just Walk Out technology," an Amazon spokesperson told Path to Purchase IQ sister brand Chain Store Age. "We remain committed to building great, long-term physical retail experiences and technologies, and we’re working closely with our affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon.”
As a global e-commerce giant, Amazon has also developed quite the physical store presence over the years as well, including Amazon Books stores, Amazon 4-Star stores and various pop-up concepts. The retailer first revealed to Reuters that it will shutter all three formats in the U.S. and United Kingdom, a total of 68 stores. The closure dates, which are unspecified, will vary.
However, the company said brick-and-mortar retail remains an important way to reach shoppers and it will continue to develop other concepts, such as its recently announced forthcoming fashion store in greater Los Angeles, Amazon Style, as well as its cashierless grocery stores, including Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go Grocery.
Amazon Books was the retailer’s first venture into the physical space back in 2015. Amazon expanded its physical presence in 2018 with 4-star stores, its mall-based locations that carry items from some of the most popular categories on Amazon.com. Everything in the store is rated four stars or higher, is a top seller or is new and trending on Amazon.com.
Amazon began testing pop-up concept stores that merchandised rotating curated themed collections, like Mattel’s Barbie and Marvel in 2019. Dubbed Presented by Amazon, the concept went live in several premier, high-trafficked malls across the U.S.