Amazon to open brick-and-mortar retail shops in Britain?

Is e-commerce giant Amazon.com about to make a move into traditional retail? The Sunday Times reports that the company is "planning a surprise invasion of the British high street" and is "scouring the country" for sites for brick-and-mortar stores.

That would certainly be a huge strategic shift for Amazon, which is known for its online-only sales model. It also raises the question of whether Amazon is making similar plans in the U.S.

Update: Amazon's U.K. website said in an e-mailed statement, "We have no plans to open physical stores anywhere in the world" but provided no further comment.

According to the Sunday Times, the stores Amazon is planning in the U.K. are so-called "click and collect," where shoppers order online and pick up at a physical store. A number of British retailers offer such services, the report notes.

Such a model would presumably make sense for larger items like electronics and big pieces of equipment. Amazon has expanded far beyond books and CDs since its early days and now carries all kinds of products, some of which aren't as easy to mail.

It would be fascinating to see Amazon, which dominates e-commerce, stake out a place in the physical retail world just as competitors such as Wal-Mart try to catch up online. It would definitely add a new dimension to Amazon's ongoing sales battle with Wal-Mart, Target and other traditional retailers.

Brick-and-mortar shops could also be a way for Amazon to display and demo its Kindle electronic readers, which currently have no physical retail sales channel.

For the record, Amazon briefly experimented with pickup locations with its Amazon Fresh grocery delivery service in the Seattle area, but quietly dropped the pickup service in February 2008.

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About Eric Engleman

ERIC ENGLEMAN is senior technology staff writer for TechFlash and the Puget Sound Business Journal, covering online retail giant Amazon.com. Engleman tracks Amazon's increasingly complex business, spanning ecommerce, Kindle, cloud computing, and more. He's been covering technology and other industries for the Business Journal since 2003.

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