London Considered for Amazon’s Innovative Store Concept

Thursday, February 28, 2019 - 14:51 by Graham Miller

E-commerce firm Amazon is reported to be in the process of finding a location for its first physical store as part of the Amazon Go service to operate outside of its native US, according to Internet Retailing.

Amazon Go outlets are completely devoid of traditional checkouts; instead customers can wander in and select the items they want and then leave without paying in person. Instead, their linked Amazon accounts are charged, as if they had made a purchase via safe shopping online rather than on the high street.

The precise positioning of London’s prospective Amazon Go store has yet to be determined, although industry sources believe that it will be in the always busy West End area of the city in order to ensure that it gets maximum exposure to foot traffic.

Experts believe that this combination of the immediacy of the high street with the convenience of online shopping could become the norm across all bricks-and-mortar retailers in the future. Some even see Amazon’s innovative idea as a potential way to save real-world stores from oblivion, since a decline in footfall and significant store closures have put the entire industry on the defensive in the past few years.

Consumers are certainly keen to experience frictionless shopping, whether they are buying from the web or visiting a local convenience outlet. E-commerce payments have become more streamlined of late, but having to queue up to pay for products on the high street is an obstacle that Amazon is seeking to remove.

Whether Amazon Go will ever make it outside of London remains to be seen, but there is little reason that other parts of the UK would not willingly adopt this approach to grocery shopping, especially if it means that a trip to the store takes less time to complete.