

Amazon to open brick-and-mortar retail shops in Britain? - cwan
http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/12/amazon_to_open_brick_and_mortar_shops_in_britain.html

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Specstacular
I'm curious as to why the might be testing this new channel in the UK rather
than the US. Does anyone have any sense of the market share of Amazon in
Britain?

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rg
Amazon.co.uk has for some time offered _same-day_ evening delivery in urban
areas of Greater London (within the M25) and Birmingham--check details on
their website--for a fairly-stiff minimum charge. Local Amazon.shops could
share whatever infrastructure supports same-day delivery. FWIW, it seems that
in the UK local courier service (using motorcycles) is comparatively cheaper
than in most major US cities, and much more commmonly used even outside the
legal and financial businesses, so this idea could be expanded.

Other possibly-relevant factors:

Logistics of delivery in the US are, on average, much simpler; both UPS and
FedEx are superlative (and Amazon uses such private carriers exclusively in
much of the US), and there are good contract-delivery options for heavier and
bulkier objects. Delivery locations (both residences and offices) are mostly
accessible, being on average much newer. It's common for customers to take
delivery at workplaces, and use their cars to take objects home.

By contrast, in the UK all the logistics companies are marginal performers,
partly because the government's subsidized Royal Mail continues to command
some usage. Much of the housing stock is vastly older and less easily
accessible than in the US; heavy and oversize deliveries are often very much a
matter of engineering custom solutions. Homes and offices can be far apart,
and the customers often commute between by train, so there's no convenient
auto to carry things home that were delivered to the office.

All these considerations may have contributed to the model of ordering over
the web and picking up from a physical location. This model has been very rare
in the U.S., but is not so uncommon in the U.K.

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Specstacular
Thanks rg. That's very insightful info.

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ilkhd2
Yes, Amazon is behaving surprisingly. First surprise was Kindle, second -
vegetables. Now - this.

