Amazon Plans to Open Large Retail Locations Akin to Department Stores

Amazon will have a hard time beating Wal-Mart and leading supermarkets such as Wegmans. I would contrast the cattle gates in the checkout at the Union Square Whole Foods to the world class self-check you'll find in a Wal-Mart in one of the flyover states.

Two likely outcomes are:

(1) The "demo store" which has hardly any product per square foot that looks like a "pop up store" to promote a brand that has no potential of moving the needle in terms of selling anything

(2) Amazon becoming just as tone deaf as Best Buy (LED light strips but no switches to control them; $60 HDMI cables, $40 USB-C cables, ...) Staples (they've got a display model of a filing cabinet but if you want one you'll have to get it delivered; they have 20 kinds of glossy photo paper for your inkjet printer but not one kind of matte paper) or Ulta Beauty (can't walk out of that store with a nose hair trimmer!)

If I was amazon, I would just do a virtual reality store... maybe partner with Facebook.