Amazon to open ‘four-star’ store in New York

Online retailing giant Amazon is opening a store in New York that will only sell products that receive a high rating on its website.

The store will sell toys, household goods and other items that have a rating of four stars or more online.

Customers who visit the store will pay less if they have bought into Amazon’s Prime service.

Physical shops are becoming a key expansion area for Amazon as it seeks to take on more traditional retailers.

The company currently operates a dozen bookshops and is experimenting with its Go outlets that do away with cashiers.

Last year it paid $13.7bn (£10.4bn) for the Whole Foods chain to fuel its push into fresh food and to help bolster its grocery delivery service.

The four-star store will also sell books, games and kitchen utensils as well as Amazon’s own Echo speakers and its Kindle e-readers. It will also have sections dedicated to items that are “trending” and proving popular with online customers.

Amazon has made attempts recently to improve the accuracy of its reviews by attempting to weed out fakes and those left by people who have been given, rather than bought, items on which they comment.

Analyst Michael Pachter, from Wedbush Securities, was sceptical about the store’s prospects, given that it would only be able to hold a certain number of physical items.

“If I’m looking for a television and the store is full of kitchen appliances, it doesn’t help me very much,” he told Reuters.