Amazon Plans Walmart-Style Big Box Store Near Chicago
229,000-Square-Foot Retail Space Would Sell Groceries and General Merchandise, Plus Contain 'Limited Warehouse Component'
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Amazon.com Inc. is planning a 229,000-square-foot store selling groceries and general merchandise in the Chicago area, a fresh attempt at physical retail that borrows from the big-box store model of competitors like Walmart Inc. and Target Corp.
If approved by officials in the Chicago suburb of Orland Park, Amazon could begin construction later this year. Earlier this month, the village planning commission reviewed the project, which has been endorsed by Mayor Jim Dodge.
“We regularly test new experiences designed to make customers’ lives better and easier every day, including physical stores,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement. “The site in question is our planned location for a new concept that we think customers will be excited about.”
Amazon also plans to sell prepared foods and have a “limited warehouse component” that will serve the store and not be a distribution center, according to village records. The store will sit on 35 acres that are currently home to a vacant restaurant.
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Amazon launched a range of physical store formats between 2015 and 2020, including a bookstore, an eclectic, gift-focused outlet, highly automated grab-and-go stores and a mainstream grocery chain. Most of those brands were wound down or saw expansion curbed during the pandemic, as the company struggled to find the right formula for in-person shopping under the Amazon brand.
Amazon made its biggest splash in physical retail with its 2017 acquisition of Whole Foods Market, which gave it more than 400 supermarkets around the country.
Amazon ranks No. 1on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of thelargest logistics companies in North America, No. 15 on the TT Top 100 list of thelargest private carriersand No. 1 on the TT Top 50 list of thelargest global freight companies.
Walmart ranks No. 1 on the private TT100 and No. 32 on the global freight TT50.
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