With Relatively Few Stores, Amazon Touts Holiday Pickup options

With Black Friday around the corner and consumers expected to do much of their holiday shopping away from stores, Amazon is sitting pretty.

The e-retailer has already had a major impact on the season. Its Prime Day event, along with other October sales, helped “jumpstart the holiday shopping season,” according to a pre-Thanksgiving report from Deloitte. Overall in October, retail spending rose 3.5% year over year, driven by 6% increase during Oct. 11-17, which featured several holiday promotions, according to the report.

But with a dearth of stores compared to other retailers (578, with most of those within its Whole Foods grocery chain) and with time running out, Amazon now may be at something of a disadvantage. Most retailers are bracing for pandemic-induced disruption during the holiday period, including light store traffic or even lockdowns, as well as freight surcharges, small package delivery delays and capacity constraints, according to a Monday client note from Telsey Advisory Group.

Source: Retail Dive