Amazon never stops looking for new markets to expand into, testing drones for delivery, same-day delivery with Prime and streaming, as examples. Now the online retailer is trying to move into another huge shopping market, grocery.
Last week, Geekwire reported that Amazon was constructing what appears to be a physical store for shoppers to pick up their grocery orders.
It is difficult for online retailers to handle grocery sales, but it’s not impossible. Peapod has been selling groceries online and delivering to homes, Amazon still doesn’t appear to have plans to do home deliveries based on the “pick up location” model.
It doesn’t seem like it would be difficult for Amazon to make the transaction into home delivery. Their Prime model has already set up a system and infrastructure to deliver products in home in a matter of hours, and they could easily expand to include groceries.
The impact this could have on grocery stores and chains could be significant. Consumers are familiar with Amazon and have likely used the service and with the temptation of less hassle and no lines, consumers could be drawn to it.
If you’re thinking that lines at the pick up location could become a problem, Amazon will apparently offer time slots to consumers to pick up their groceries, with a limited amount per time slot to control the flow of traffic through the location.
Of course, it’s still in the early phases and not even officially confirmed yet. Amazon is still in the feeling out process, but to invest in brick and mortar structures seems like they’re pretty confident given their market research pre-dating the decision.
