Amazon’s first 4-star in Texas opens in ‘vibrant’ area of Frisco
DALLAS — The first Amazon 4-star in Texas opened Wednesday at Stonebriar Centre in the Dallas suburb of Frisco with more than 2,000 items displayed in ways familiar to Amazon’s online shoppers — except they’re within four walls and there’s a staff to help.
This is only the sixth Amazon 4-star store in the U.S., “which is an indication that we really feel embraced by the overall Dallas market,” said Drew Sheriff, director of Amazon physical stores.
Everything in the store is rated four stars or above, is a top seller, or is new and trending on Amazon.com.
The company picked
Stonebriar, he said, because it’s in a “vibrant area” and because of the other tenants in the mall. The popular suburban mall is undergoing a major expansion.
While Amazon led a revolution of the retail industry that forced legacy retailers to build expensive online businesses, it’s not clear yet whether or how its stores will force change.
“We know there are customers who want to shop offline and benefit from seeing something in person,” Sheriff said.
Stores are viewed as an “innovation” inside the bigger Amazon and a way to integrate with the online business, Sheriff said.
“There’s always so much great innovation, and we feel like we’re a big part of it,” he said.
The store is organized by familiar online topics: consumer electronics, kitchen, home, toys, books, games.
It also has interactive displays for the electronic brands Amazon owns: Echo, Fire, Kindle and Ring.
Amazon has borrowed a few other ideas from its online store. Customer reviews are displayed on cards, and digital price tags display both regular prices and discounted prices for Amazon Prime members. The store is giving shoppers who aren’t Prime members a free trial.
Amazon 4-star accepts returns of online Amazon purchases.