What Happened
Three months after Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar bookstore in Seattle, the ecommerce giant is said to be planning as many as 400 bookstores across the nation, according to Sandeep Mathrani, CEO of mall operator General Growth Properties Inc. Amazon uses the data it acquires from its online properties to stock its Seattle store, and we anticipate a similar approach will be applied to its other stores as the company pushes deeper into physical retail.
What Brands Need To Do
As more and more online retailers venture into physical retail, they gain retail presence and leverage what they have learned about their customers online to enhance their in-store experiences and at the same time develop more personal relationships with their customers which can inform the online experience. Amazon is tapping the location and purchase data it has to bridge the gap between online and offline retail, and all brands with an owned retail presence need to start doing the same in order to develop a holistic CRM system that covers the entire purchase cycle.
For more details on how retailers can utilize all customer touchpoints to improve shopping experiences both online and offline, click here to read the Boundless Retail section in our new Outlook 2016.
Editor’s note: A new report from Re/code now indicates that while Amazon does have plans for more physical stores, including retail stores that aren’t bookstores, it has no immediate plans for opening 300-400 stores.
Source: Wall Street Journal
Header image courtesy of Amazon