Open store sign

Amazon Expands its Storefront Footprint

Online retail giant Amazon opened another brick-and-mortar location near a university: Amazon@Cincinnati is a fully-staffed pickup and return location at the U Square development near the University of Cincinnati. It opened its doors on January 7. (Read more about U Square in the Winter 2013 issue of Development magazine.)

The storefront is taking up a 2,363-square-foot space and is comparable to university-convenient stores found at Purdue University, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, plus future stores at the University of California at Berkeley and University of California at Santa Barbara. Buyers order online through Amazon Student, and receive a text or email notification when their package arrives.

What’s the impact for real estate? Urban distribution centers where products can got from the shelf to the shopper’s hands in a day or two are sought-after. An article in Industrial Distribution cites a CBRE report that says demand for urban-located industrial facilities under 200,000 square feet is on the rise.

For shoppers? Fortune says, “The program, Campus Pick-up Point, premiered in February as a convenience for students who live in dorms or apartments, where receiving packages can be difficult. It also increases Amazon’s visibility among an important demographic that often shops online for textbooks and their necessities.”

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