Online retail giant Amazon is reportedly searching for as many as 24 high street locations in central London at which to open Amazon Go convenience stores, according to reports. The store concept is checkout-free, and will work along similar lines to the company's pilot store in Seattle.
The Sunday Times said that Amazon could be looking at opening its first store in the UK capital later this year.
Commenting on the news, analyst Bruno Monteyne of Bernstein Research said that the company's decision to open physical stores suggests that it sees the UK as an "attractive market to do business".
Montyene also noted that Amazon's 'checkout-free' concept, which can be viewed in the video below, could boost its margins quite considerably.
"UK Food retail, Tesco in particular, has a long history of productivity-enhancing innovation in food retail (self-check-out, scan as you shop, RFID tagging) and if this particular concept proves a success we would expect to see them look to replicate it quickly," he said. "Taking labour cost out of the checkout entirely could enhance margins by several 100 bps."
© 2017 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up for ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine.
