Amazon — The Infrastructuralist
I finished a recent post with a comment that without flexibility and change in the retail / leisure sector we could see new operators simply find their own way to market rather than relying on the traditional “mall” offering.
Watching the Amazon / JC Penney rumours continue to grow certainly adds to the wider discussion and we should be watching with interest – their foray into real estate with Amazon Go potentially being a precursor to something much more significant.
Those that may think this is light years away here in the UK might cast a glance towards Clas Ohlson who are now removed from the UK high street and selling its products directly through Amazon.
It is also reported that Amazon will be looking to start selling its cashierless “Amazon Go” technology to retailers surely the start of a journey towards greater integration / collaboration.
As a company built from the ground up on tech / data its fair to say that if Amazon do seek to “control the technological operating platform for the shopping mall of the future” then it could make for a very different global retail experience and landscape.
Subcribe to news and viewsAn entire mall could have an Amazon front end web experience, each store could run on any number of Amazon tech platforms (from GH Lab-style mobile scan-and-go below to Amazon Go-style computer vision), returns could all be processed at one or multiple Amazon return desks (thanks, Kohl’s, for teaching Amazon how to do this), and every retailer within the mall could also co-share fulfillment out of an onsite Amazon warehouse similar to how they share Amazon distribution facilities for online sales now.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherwalton/2020/05/29/the-value-of-amazon-buying-jc-penney-could-far-exceed-that-of-buying-target-kohls-or-anyone-else/#278a9c2cbcd9
