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Amazon considers moving into the high street
ONLINE RETAILER Amazon is considering opening high street stores to take on rivals such as Apple.
According to Reuters, Amazon is planning to open a physical store in its home town of Seattle in the coming months to showcase and sell devices such as its Kindle Fire tablet.
The report comes after Amazon bought an online retailer called Quidsi in 2010, which opened its first retail store in Manhasset, New York last year to sell cosmetics and perfumes under the name Beautybar.
Industry experts predict that Amazon will open stores that will directly compete with Apple's retail presence by showcasing physical products to 'try before you buy'.
It would be interesting to see what would happen to Amazon's prices though, as its advantage has always been its low prices that it was able to maintain by selling online only.
Amazon looks like it will be getting its fingers into lots of pies this year. Last month, we reported that the online retailer could launch its own video streaming service to rival Netflix.
Netflix made the prediction in a letter to shareholders, adding that it expects Amazon's standalone service to be priced below its own online video streaming service. µ
Tags: Apple
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@BB: agreed, they should open these stores only in US states where they already have a physical presence anyway.
In Canada, on the other hand, we're paying 13% HST (this varies a bit by province), even without any Amazon physical presence in the province. I wouldn't mind a physical store close to where I live. It wouldn't add more tax, and it could be handy once a year or so when I need to return an item. That's the only advantage Chapters (Amazon's main competition in Canada) has over Amazon.
Amazon better keep their shops out of my state. I don't want to pay for taxes on stuff I buy from them just because they're stupid enough to want to regress back to brick-and-mortar shops.