Amazon Is Very Serious About Its New Brick & Mortar Strategy

Amazon.com, Inc. AMZN shocked many people back in November 2015 when it announced plans to open a brick-and-mortar book store.

Not even two full years have passed and Amazon is now working on opening its 10th store. According to a Recode report, Amazon's plans for its newest store was spoiled when it was flagged by a building contractor site BuildZoom.

Amazon then confirmed with Recode it's indeed opening its 10th store and is in the process of hiring staff.

Not An Experiment

Opening one physical store could be seen as a pet project for Amazon, but not 10 in major cities across the U.S., including Chicago, New York City and suburbs of New Jersey.

"We test, we innovate," Recode quoted Amazon's Chief Financial Officer Brian Olsavsk as saying during a conference call. "We think the bookstores, for instance, are a really great way for customers to engage with our devices and see them, touch them, play with them and become fans. So we see a lot of value in that as well."

But Amazon's expansion into brick and mortar isn't necessarily a surprise as there have been plenty of signs. For example, some analysts speculated in early January that Amazon's announcement of hiring 100,000 new full-time jobs over the next 18 months is proof of an "accelerate roll-out of physical stores."

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