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Amazon May Open As Many As 100 ‘Device’ Pop-Ups Nationwide

With a brick-and-mortar store open in Seattle and plans for three more openings by early 2017, Amazon has finally broken ground on a traditional physical store presence. But these stores aren’t the e-Commerce giant’s first physical retail expansion; Amazon opened its first pop-up kiosks in San Francisco and Sacramento, Calif. during the 2014 holiday season and the retailer reportedly has plans to open as many as 100 pop-up locations nationwide.

Amazon quietly launched a web page with the addresses of 21 pop-up stores and the Seattle Books location, but the retailer is expected to have more than 30 open by the end of 2016 and up to 100 by 2017, according to Business Insider. The report indicated that the pop-ups are designed to showcase Amazon’s technology offerings and that the pop-up stores are actually run by the Amazon Devices team, not the same retail team that operates the Seattle store.

Similar to its opening of the Seattle store, Amazon has been low-key with its pop-up announcement, sharing few details regarding the long term direction of the project. The “100 stores” report is reminiscent of the speculation that arose after the Seattle store first opened, when the CEO of General Growth Properties claimed Amazon would open as many as 400 physical stores. The CEO later walked back his statement, saying they were not an accurate representation of Amazon’s plans, according to Fortune.

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In recent months, Amazon posted various job listings on its jobs page in towns that don’t presently have physical locations, including Miami, West Hartford, Conn., Fairfax, Va. and Auburn Hills, Mich. One listing notes that the concepts recently emerged from a “test phase with a goal to expand and grow.”

The pop-up stores, which have traditionally measured 300 to 500 square feet and are located in shopping malls, carry an assortment of Amazon hardware including Kindle e-readers, Fire TVs and tablets, Dash buttons, Echo speakers and complementary accessories. Similar to the Seattle store, Amazon experts are available in the pop-ups to aid consumers as they browse or purchase the items on display.

It is unknown how long these pop-up locations are intended to stay open. While the Sacramento location has shut down, the San Francisco kiosk located within the Westfield Mall has remained open, making it quite different from a typical pop-up location in that regard.

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