E-commerce giant opens first physical store in New York

Internet Retailing

11th May 2017

Jet.com, the Amazon competitor acquired by Walmart last August, has opened a pop-up grocery store in New York City this week.

Located at the revolving concept store Story, the pop-up will sell fresh produce, ingredients and kitchen products for six weeks. Cooking workshops and classes will also be held there.

The move comes as Walmart ramps up its e-commerce offering.

Since buying Jet.com for $3.3 billion in 2016, the US retail giant has acquired a string of smaller online apparel companies – ShoeBuy, Moosejaw and ModCloth – as Amazon launches its own private fashion labels.

But even as the battle heats up online, the grocery pop-up reflects the fact that the line between online and offline retail is becoming increasingly blurred.

Amazon too has experimented with physical retail in recent months, testing a new bricks-and-mortar store format in Seattle where Prime members can pick up food items they ordered online.

The company is also testing Amazon Go, a physical convenience store where customers can “just walk out” with the items they want. Cameras track what each person takes, and their account is automatically charged.

Amazon also now operates six bricks-and-mortar bookstores throughout the US and plans to open six more soon.