EP148- Amazon 4-Star Retail Concept Store  Amazon 4-Star, Amazon’s latest brick and mortar retail concept, opened in the SOHO neighborhood of New York City on Thursday, September 27th. The premise that its assortment of merchandise available in the store is rated 4-star or higher, curated by customers, a top seller or is new and trending on Amazon.  Jason was on-hand for the grand opening and gives a first-hand account.   "What Competitors Are Missing About Amazon's New 4-Star Retail Concept" from Forbes. Overview of Amazons brick and mortar formats to date Description of the Amazon 4-Star Store Digital Fact Tags SoluM is the hardware provider  Checkout Experience Implications for other retailers Upcoming: Groceryshop October 28-31, Las Vegas Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 148 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, October 1st, 2018. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "retailgeek" Goldberg, SVP Commerce & Content at SapientRazorfish, and Scot Wingo, Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:25] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode 148 being recorded on Monday October 1st 2018 I'm your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host, Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:41] Hey Jason welcome back Jason Scott shirtless nurse well it says you have a special treat for you this week we. Jeff Bezos says you know is one of our top listeners and he knew Jason was in New York last week and he thought that would be a good time to open an exciting new store the four-star store in Jason Our Lives always in a city on a new Amazon thing opens a reporter is going to give us a trip report today. Jason: [1:10] Yeah I know it's super excited to talk about a 4-star I'm sad because the last show we were together so now I'm having to get used to the the separation and doing it remotely against God. Scot: [1:23] I know I know well I'm sure we'll see each other next couple years. Jason: [1:27] I'm looking forward to it already. Scot: [1:29] Cool let's kick it off by so you know you and I fall asleep closely maybe not everyone else's is obsessed with the Amazon physical stores let's kick it off once you give us an overview of the different store formats that are out there. Jason: [1:49] Well so I think the first brick-and-mortar store than Amazon ever opened was probably the Amazon bookstore the original one in the University Center in in a suburb of Seattle. Now I want to say there are 17 or 18 of the book stores open. Instead of this is like the. They do Intex sell books they also sell Amazon Hardware in the store some of the key unique concepts of the store. [2:21] Amazon has Dynamic pricing their pricing on a line changes all the time they want to offer the same price in the store that they do online so the store has no price tag so you have to use the Amazon app and scan everything in the school or store. To learn what the price is when you make your purchases you get in line at a traditional cash wrap but instead of paying with a credit card you're highly encouraged to use, the Amazon mobile app to check out using your Amazon digital wallet so they have kind of a. To my way of thinking convoluted High friction. Checkout experience and I expect we'll talk about that more and there's a lot of speculation about the purpose of those book stores. It it seems unlikely to me personally that that Amazon has identified the dead tree book category is a category where they desperately have to get more market share than they were getting online and so they open. Book stores because they thought that that was the category the world needed more of my my promise has always been, that Amazon has these really successful Hardware products like the Echo and the fire and the day recognizes that th