More campus stores likely in the US.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: After years of assaulting the sales of brick-and-mortar stores around the world, Amazon is now giving storeowners another cause for concern by setting up shop — quite literally — on U.S. college campuses.
The online retail giant celebrated the grand opening of its first ever staffed, physical location on Tuesday at Purdue University in Indiana.
While the shop is not a true retail outlet in the sense that it isn’t lined with shelves of perusable items, the new location will make prime campus-eligible items available for pickup just one day after being ordered online. Students will also be able to find books assigned to classes via a Purdue logo badge when shopping for their required reading materials.
Amazon doesn’t intend to rest on its laurels for any measure of time whatsoever — the company is planning to launch a second physical location on campus in the spring, with one-day shipping for all Purdue textbooks expanding to the 100 percent of student body soon afterward.
If Amazon can establish a beachhead at Purdue and eventually create a national network of convenient campus stores offering a near infinite inventory, millions of students may have little reason to visit true brick-and-mortar establishments save the direst of circumstances.
The grand opening in Indiana coincided with Bloomberg’s breaking report that Amazon has been in discussions with RadioShack about acquiring some of its stores. If the embattled electronics chain decides to sell, the stores will become showcases for Amazon’s own products — such as the Kindle e-readers and tablets — as well as serving as pick-up and drop-off sites for Amazon customers.
Radioshack is on the cusp of declaring bankruptcy, and has consequently offered some stores to wireless carrier Sprint in an effort to keep its options open. While the deal with Amazon might not transpire, the negotiations certainly indicate how Amazon intends to play its cards in the future.
As it stands, in order to head off competition from other retailers, the company that originally changed the game as an online bookstore looks poised to shake things up again by adopting a hybrid business model that combines e-commerce with physical, offline services.