CNN Enterprise
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First, Amazon killed conventional bookstores. Then it opened its personal. Now, Amazon is getting rid of its bookstores.
The e-commerce large confirmed Wednesday that it’s closing 68 retail areas, together with all of its Amazon
(AMZN) Books shops, as a part of a broader shift in its bricks-and-mortar retail technique.
Along with the bookstores, Amazon can be closing two different bodily retail ideas: Its “4-star” stores, which offered merchandise that had excessive buyer scores, and its Pop Up shops.
As an alternative, Amazon mentioned it’s planning to “focus extra” on different bodily retail efforts, together with its devoted shops for groceries, Amazon Recent and Entire Meals, in addition to its just lately launched attire store, Amazon Fashion. It should additionally proceed to concentrate on Amazon Go, its cashierless grocery retailer idea.
“We stay dedicated to constructing nice, long-term bodily retail experiences and applied sciences, and we’re working carefully with our affected staff to assist them discover new roles inside Amazon,” Betsy Harden, a spokesperson for the corporate, mentioned in a press release.
Amazon’s first foray into brick-and-mortar retail got here in early 2015 with a campus retailer for college kids, twenty years after the corporate was based. Later that yr, Amazon opened its first bodily bookstore in Seattle. In 2017, Amazon introduced it could purchase Entire Meals and, with it, the grocery store chain’s a whole lot of grocery shops. Earlier this yr, the corporate introduced it could open Amazon Style.
As of December 31, 2021, Amazon had 672 bodily shops in North America, together with Entire Meals, in accordance with its latest annual submitting.
Amazon mentioned closure dates for the impacted shops will fluctuate by location. Prospects can be made conscious of these dates by in-store indicators.