News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Amazon opens 'Instant Pickup' points in US brick-and-mortar push. Parent comment

Re:Amazon opens 'Instant Pickup' points in US brick-and-mort... by Johnny555 on Tuesday August 15, 2017 @11:36AM (#15019191)
The USA used to have "Service Merchandise" [1], which was a similar concept -- it was a "catalog showroom", you'd walk the isles, find the product you wanted and write down the code and then after you check out, you'd wait for your product to appear on a conveyer belt from the warehouse. They went out of business in the early 2000's.

I don't know of any similar stores that are still in business.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Merchandise

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Amazon opens 'Instant Pickup' points in US brick-and-mort... by DrScump on Wednesday August 16, 2017 @06:12AM (#15026298)
SM was the third in that category (locally), after Consumers Distributing and Best Products. There was also one named something like DAK (not the Drew Kaplan electronics-specific thing); they had a store at Camden and Union in Campbell/San Jose.

Years earlier, there was Unity, but they had few stores and were mostly catalog.

One could argue that Sears was the original catalog+store model.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Amazon opens 'Instant Pickup' points in US brick-and-mort... by SippinLean on Tuesday August 15, 2017 @05:55PM (#15023057)
I still remember seeing my SNES come down that conveyor belt.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Amazon opens 'Instant Pickup' points in US brick-and-mort... by philipodonnell on Tuesday August 15, 2017 @01:45PM (#15020512)
Ikea still works this way with larger items.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Amazon opens 'Instant Pickup' points in US brick-and-mort... by peter303 on Tuesday August 15, 2017 @12:21PM (#15019618)
Ikea
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Amazon opens 'Instant Pickup' points in US brick-and-mort... by rsynnott on Tuesday August 15, 2017 @12:42PM (#15019816)
Ikea's a bit different, in that you collect the items yourself in a warehouse, and it's mostly furniture-centric. Argos is more like a small Amazon in a building; they sell all sorts of stuff.
[ Parent | on HN ]