Can Amazon Build a Successful Grocery Chain?

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) has signed leases on more than a dozen grocery store locations in the Los Angeles area and plans to also open locations in Chicago and Philadelphia, according to The Wall Street Journal. It's a move that makes sense when you consider that the online retailer can use brick-and-mortar locations to also serve as delivery hubs.

The online giant has not commented publicly on its overall physical store plan -- whether for full-size grocery locations, bookstores, its cashier-free Go brand, or other formats in its portfolio. Most of these new leases, The Journal's Esther Fung reported, are "outside urban cores and cater to middle-income consumers."

That's a core customer for Amazon who would perhaps not be the target for the chain's more upscale Whole Foods brand. Amazon, it should also be noted, closed that grocery chain's lower-price/fewer-frills 365 stores early this year.

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Source Fool.com