Amazon shuttering its physical bookstores and 4-star shops

Amazon is closing ALL 66 of its physical US and UK bookstores, ‘4-Star Shops’ and pop-ups as it concentrates on Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh food stores

  • On Wednesday Amazon announced that seven years after opening its first location in Seattle, Amazon would be shuttering all of its bookstores 
  • Amazon said the move will allow them to concentrate their efforts on Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, as well as Amazon Go and Amazon Style stores
  • Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar bookstore in 2015, two decades after it began selling books online and helped drive a number of shops out of business
  • Amazon’s 4-star shops, which first made their debut in 2018, carry a limited selection of best-selling products from top categories that Amazon.com sells

Amazon is closing up shop on all of its brick-and-mortar bookstores and 4-Star shops as they shift their focus on Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh food stores.  

On Wednesday the online retail behemoth announced that seven years after opening its first physical location in Seattle, Amazon would be shuttering all of its bookstores, which include 66 stores in the U.S. and two in the United Kingdom.

According to the company, the move will allow them to concentrate their efforts on Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, as well as its convenience concept called Amazon Go and its upcoming Amazon Style stores. 

Amazon Style, which will sell fashion and accessories, is set to open in a Southern California mall later this year.

Amazon announced that seven years after opening its first location in Seattle, they would be shuttering all of its bookstores

 Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar bookstore in 2015, two decades after it began selling books online and helped drive a number of shops out of business. Pictured is a New York Amazon book store 

‘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,’ the company said in a statement. 

In 2015 Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar two decades after the company started its rise to prominence by selling books online and it was a big reason bookstore chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble struggled. 

Borders filed for bankruptcy protection in 2011, and Barnes & Noble sustained years of declining revenue, Yahoo Finance reported.   

Amazon’s 4-star shops, which first made their debut in 2018, carry a limited selection of best-selling products from top categories that Amazon.com sells, including devices, consumer electronics, toys and games.

Amazon said the move will allow them to concentrate their efforts on Amazon Fresh, (pictured) Whole Foods Market, as well as Amazon Go and Amazon Style stores

The move comes as Amazon.com Inc.’s overall revenue growth is slowing, and it’s looking for new ways to reignite sales.

Experts believe the closures came because the bookstores weren’t delivering the returns Amazon was looking for.

According to Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail, the main problem with Amazon’s  non-food stores is that they lacked a real purpose even though the merchandise was well-presented. 

‘They were designed for people to pop in and browse rather than as destinations where people would head on a mission to buy something,’ he wrote in a note on Wednesday.

He noted that ultimately that wasn’t good for driving customer traffic, especially in an era where people are visiting shops less.

Saunders added that the other problem is the assortment which, in many locations, was disjoined and unfocused.

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