Amazon Opens Store Featuring Best-Selling Merchandise

Amazon.com is opening a new physical store that sells items from its website rated four stars or above, the company said in a blog post on Wednesday, making a bigger push into brick-and-mortar retail. The store opened yesterday in New York's SoHo neighborhood. The company said Amazon Prime members will pay "the Amazon.com price" when they shop there. An Amazon spokeswoman said the store is permanent, not a pop-up location, as some of its shops have been before. Amazon said digital price tags in the new store will show how much Prime members are saving, the average star rating and how many ratings a product has received, similar to what shoppers on its website.

Total Retail's Take: Amazon is accomplishing two things with the opening of this new store in New York: one, it further extends its reach into brick-and-mortar retail, a growth opportunity that the once online-only retailer has invested significant resources into, from its acquisition of Whole Foods to the opening of its high-tech, cashier-less Amazon Go stores and two, it provides another avenue for Amazon to tout the benefits of being a Prime member, specifically price savings on the products sold in its new SoHo store. Much like brick-and-mortar, Prime represents a significant growth opportunity for Amazon.