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Amazon is about to enter the ‘real world’ with the company’s first attempt at a bricks and mortar location. The online retailer is making... Amazon To Open Its First Shop

Amazon is about to enter the ‘real world’ with the company’s first attempt at a bricks and mortar location. The online retailer is making this move to begin the transfer from online retail to physical retail, with their very own Amazon ‘shop’.

Technically, it is a staffed pick-up and drop-off location, so calling it a shop is a very loose term. It’s more like a casual collection point. The first Amazon shop is located at Perdue University in the US.

Amazon@Perdue will allow students at the local university to collect purchased packages as well as return items via the same outlet. Both Amazon Prime and Amazon Student members will receive next-day delivery on textbooks shipped to the West Lafayette campus, completely free of charge.

This is more than likely a small part of a larger plan by Amazon, in order to move into the physical retail environment.

Both Apple and Samsung have already opened shops all over the planet, so that they can get their products out there in the hands of consumers. This approach clearly works, especially with higher end products from the likes of Samsung and Apple. Personally, I find the whole experience of shopping in an Apple retail store, quite unique.

According to some analysts, Amazon will not survive in its current state unless it begins to move into a physical retail environment. This has been concluded, no doubt, due to the firm having spent around $6.6 billion on transportation costs since 2005 and in the two years since Amazon Prime launched, the retail giant’s shipping costs have increased by more than 25%.

Amazon plans to spread the new university shops across the US, beginning with the University of California, Davis and the University Massachusetts, Amherst.

[Image via nbcdfw]

SOURCE: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/132605-amazon-coming-to-a-high-street-near-you-opens-first-staffed-shop