Oliver Haslam on August 20, 2021, 12:41 am

Amazon Reportedly Wants To Open Department Stores With California And Ohio The First On The List

A new report by WSJ claims that Amazon intends to open new department stores in Ohio and California — a year after a similar report suggested that the company might use empty malls as fulfillment centers.

While Amazon already has some physical stores thanks to its ownership of Whole Foods and some Amazon Go convenience stores, this would be the first time it’s gone full bore on the retail space.

The new report says that Amazon is looking at stores around the 30,000 square feet mark, rather than the massive units the likes of Macy’s possess. They’ll still be huge compared to anything Amazon already has.

Some of the first Amazon department stores are expected to be located in Ohio and California, the people said. The new retail spaces will be around 30,000 square feet, smaller than most department stores, which typically occupy about 100,000 square feet, and will offer items from top consumer brands. The Amazon stores will dwarf many of the company’s other physical retail spaces and will have a footprint similar to scaled-down formats that Bloomingdale’s Inc., Nordstrom Inc. and other department-store chains have begun opening, the people said.

The WSJ report says it isn’t yet clear what brands or products we should expect the company to stock.

However, it’s fair to say that Kindles and other own-label products will be in attendance.