Amazon plans to roll out more than 100 kiosks in malls across the country that will sell its devices such as the Kindle ebook reader, the Echo speaker and the Fire TV dongle by the end of the year, The Economic Times reported
This is not the first time Amazon has put offline kiosks at play for a wider reach to its customers.
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Earlier in 2017, Amazon set up kiosks in Bengaluru and has been operating four of them – two in the Karnataka capital and one each in Mumbai and Ahmedabad – for more than a year. The fifth kiosk came in Logix Mall in Noida.
A top mall executive said the Amazon kiosks will be run by third-party franchisees. Earlier this month, Amazon said it was closing more than 80 popup stores in US malls after years of trials with the concept.
Google had experimented with more than a dozen popup stores in malls in India including High Street Phoenix in Mumbai and Select Citywalk, Promenade, Mall of India in the Delhi-National Capital Region to showcase its Pixel 2 phones and educate consumers on its features.
Myntra, the online fashion arm of Walmart-owned Flipkart, operates various stores of Spanish fashion brand Mango as well as private brand Roadster.
Amazon had received government approval to sell locally produced and packaged food items through both offline and online channels in India in July 2017. However, it is yet to open any food-only brickand-mortar stores. Amazon Retail India Pvt Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of the US online retailer, is currently selling food items on Amazon.in.
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