An article claims that supermarkets that provide Amazon Lockers are doing themselves a disservice.
UK Business Insider reported that retailers need to realise that “Amazon.com is not their friend” and that there is no benefit nor will it “boost to their own sales” by partnering with the company. It was noted that US shopping malls have embraced the concept, and claims that the arrangement will undermine “the very tenants who are paying their bills”.
The lockers were introduced in 2011 in the US and are found in most major cities, and Amazon said that they have “hundreds of locations across the country” and are adding more. The idea behind the locker system is that an ordered item can be sent to a local store for the consumer to retrieve, having been sent a code to gain access, and are said to be ideal for those who are not able to be home for deliveries.
The article noted that this also appeared to benefit local hosting businesses as well, since there are rental fees for the lockers, and customers retrieving parcels may also shop at the store, but goes on to say that retailers are discovering that by “boosting Amazon’s sales” they are “undercutting their own”. It used Staples as an example, saying that instead of boosting sales in store, all that happened was that customers bought their office supplies from Amazon, and that after a year the programme was “abruptly ended”.
Claiming that “Amazon doesn’t have their best interests at heart”, the article goes on to say that analytics from ShopperTrak data showed that shopping malls’ “foot traffic has plunged 57 percent” in the last five years ,and that although Christmas sales rose four percent last year, online sales rose almost 13 percent year-over-year, with Amazon accounting for 40 percent of “all e-commerce sales”. It added that some of the people who venture in store to collect packages may or may not help shop tenants’ sales.
The article also noted that “brick and mortar retailers” are failing because of the rise in e-commerce, and specifically Amazon, stating that estate agent research from CoStar said that “annual department store retail sales” have fallen 28 percent since 1999, when they were at their peak, and estimates that “nearly one billion square feet of retail space will need to be rationalised over the next few years”.
The report concedes that convenience stores may benefit from the lockers because “they are not in direct competition with the online sales leader”, but that “mall operators that are installing Amazon lockers” are accelerating their own tenants’ demise, as they are no match for Amazon.