Amazon: Kindle POS System for Physical Retailers

Shelf Awareness

Amazon may offer bricks-and-mortar retailers a POS system that uses Kindle tablets "as soon as this summer," the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources who were briefed on the company's strategy, while cautioning that the online retailer's plans "remain fluid and the project might be delayed, altered or canceled."

Noting the project would move Amazon "into the realm of physical retail stores, where more than 90% of commerce is still conducted, and open up a new trove of data from consumers' in-store spending habits," the Journal added that because larger retailers already have "extensive, complicated checkout systems that may be difficult or costly to give up, Amazon is likely to focus the project first on small and midsize retailers."