Amazon is apparently planning a big box store in the Chicago suburbs
Amazon is making something of a return to physical retail via plans to build a big-box retail store in suburban Chicago, The information reports. The 225,000 square foot retail space will open in Orland Park, Illinois, and will give the company the opportunity to sell more than just groceries after closing most of its physical bookstores and gift shops in 2022.
The new store will offer in-store shopping but will also serve as a fulfillment center for online orders, which could make it similar to competitors like Target and Walmart, as well as some of Amazon’s existing Whole Foods and Amazon Fresh locations. “The proposed development will offer a wide selection of products, including groceries and general merchandise, with ancillary services and potentially food service locations for prepared foods sold on-site,” Amazon wrote in a planning document. The information seen.
Although Amazon is best known as an online marketplace, it has made several attempts to have a physical retail presence. Amazon Books sold books based on trends on the company’s website, Amazon 4 Star sold a variety of products rated four stars or higher in Amazon reviews, and the company’s Amazon Go stores sold prepared foods and a selection of groceries through its cashier-less “Just Walk Out” technology.
Amazon abandoned virtually all of those experiments to stick with the grocery brand it bought in 2017, Whole Foods, and the new one it created in the years since, Amazon Fresh. This new store could be an entirely new concept, or an evolution of Amazon Fresh, but regardless, it will need approval from the Orland Park Village Board of Trustees to move forward, according to the Chicago Tribune.
