According to the report, Amazon's Manhattan location would function as a "mini-warehouse" for same-day delivery in New York, product returns and pickups of online orders. (Photo: LIONEL BONAVENTURE, AFP/Getty Images) 
 
 LOS ANGELES — Could this be Amazon's Miracle on 34th Street? 
 
 Online retail giant Amazon will take on Macy's and other Herald Square retailers with a physical store of its own for the holidays in New York, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing people familiar with the plans. 
 
 The Manhattan location would function as a "mini-warehouse" for same-day delivery in New York, product returns and pickups of online orders, according to the report. 
 
 Amazon has shaken up the retail world by offering lower prices than many brick-and-mortar stores and offering comparison app tools that brought forth the trend of "showroom buying" — folks going to a physical store to see the item, then going home and ordering it online to save money. 
 
 The E-tailer, now with a line of its own tech products — several Kindle e-readers and tablets, a TV set-top box and new smartphone — would be able to put its homegrown goods in front of more eyeballs and tout its growing offering of same-day delivery. That service is available in 12 cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Phoenix. 
 
 Richard Doherty, an analyst with the Envisioneering Group, says New York attracts many foreign tourists who shop on Amazon back home, but find many products only sold here. 
 
 A retail store offering same-day delivery could be "a tremendous uptick for tourists" and generate "tremendous volume," Doherty says. 
 
 Amazon declined to comment, with spokeswoman Kelly Cheeseman adding, "We have made no announcements about a location in Manhattan." 
 
 Amazon would be expected to devote much of the floor space to its Kindle e-readers and tablets, which have sold well, as well as the underperforming Fire set-top box and Fire smartphone. The Fire phone started at $199 in July, but was marked down to $1 (with a two-year contract) just two months later. 
 
 Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies, sees this as an experiment for Amazon to get its products in front of consumers. Only a handful of retailers sell Kindles, including Best Buy and Wal-Mart. 
 
 "There's still a segment of the population that's touchy-feely," says Bajarin. "They want to see the product up close, and have it shown to them." 
 
 By opening in New York during the holidays, Amazon "gets high traffic, and the kind of feedback it needs to see if it wants to expand." 
 
 Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group, says Amazon wouldn't just stock its own products. "Even the Apple Store carries non-Apple products," he says. "They'll showcase Amazon, but also show off the breadth of Amazon's catalog." 
 
 According to the Journal, the address for the store is 7 West 34th Street, across from the Empire State Building and a block east from busy Herald Square, home to the flagship Macy's, and site of the classic 1947 Christmas movie Miracle on 34th Street, about a Santa Claus put on trial for believing that he is indeed Kris Kringle. 
 
 Follow Jefferson Graham on Twitter. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1vUlJcM ||||| By Patrick May / July 8, 2016 at 10:16 AM 
 
 Perhaps because it was stung so badly last year by the New York Times whose writers called it a ”bruising workplace,” or maybe to blunt other criticism of being disconnected from its hometown of Seattle, Amazon is now figuratively going full monty, offering the public guided tours of its Seattle headquarters — as long as visitors don’t bring binoculars with them. 
 
 Criticized in the past by the local paper for being tight-fisted when it comes to helping local charities, Amazon’s headquarters tour site points out that the tech giant is the city’s biggest private employer and one of its largest taxpayers. And it boasts that one of its unused buildings serves as a homeless shelter for families. 
 
 “Several years ago, we made a conscious choice to invest in downtown Seattle, even though it would’ve been cheaper for us to move our headquarters to the suburbs,” says a note on site. “We chose to commit to Seattle because we believed it was the right choice for our employees and for the city.” 
 
 Amazon has made previous efforts to show the public a friendly face: it currently offers open-houses at six fulfillment centers across the country. Says its website: 
 
 We’re proud to offer tours of our fulfillment centers on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time. Come see the magic that happens after you click buy on Amazon. 
 
 Betcha never knew there was so much ”magic” every time you ordered dog food or socks online. 
 
 So now it’s time for the company’s sprawling HQ to get its time in the spotlight. The tours begin at Amazon’s offices overlooking Lake Union, but the tour’s online component also shows off features of Amazon’s new campus in the Denny Triangle neighborhood, featuring a photo of the company’s dog park, perched on the roof of its Doppler building. There’s also information about the company’s drive to heat the new campus using recycled waste heat from the nearby data center called the Westin Building. 
 
 In a blog post about the new tours, John Schoettler, director of global real estate and facilities, could barely contain his excitement: 
 
 “Customers will get a behind the scenes look inside some of our buildings, hear stories that shaped Amazon’s quirky history, learn about community programs like our partnership with Mary’s Place, interact with some of the latest innovations in robot technology, enjoy a free banana from our Community Banana Stand, and, most importantly, see Amazonians at work doing what they do best – obsessing over customers.” 
 
 Obsession! Magic! What’s not to like? 
 
 In a fun dispatch from The Land of Online Purchases, The Guardian’s Mark Harris takes us all along with him on the tour: 
 
 A group of twentysomethings are laughing around a rooftop fire-pit overlooking sailboats on Seattle’s Lake Union. A team of software engineers huddles round a laptop while sipping lattes in wingback chairs. And a tiny Boston terrier is running around squeaking a squeezy toy. Amazon’s first-ever public tour of its Seattle headquarters offers a very different view from the toxic workplace depicted in last year’s New York Times exposé. There’s not one person crying at their desk, and not a single burned-out “rank and yank” reject being tossed from the building by burly security guards. 
 
 Harris says he signed up online for a tour the other day and joined his fellow visitors, whom he described as “an assortment of tech fans and tourists. A father had brought his son into the city for a summer holiday treat. A few smartly dressed jobseekers strive to impress the tour guide with their can-do attitudes, while a middle-aged Chinese couple straight off the plane seem thrilled to be exploring the home of their beloved Kindle.” 
 
 It’s a cool peek into the not-quite inner sanctum of this monster company, which will soon occupy 15 percent of Seattle’s office space. 
 
 Oh yeah. Dogs. Harris’ tour guide says one of the buildings on campus is named after Amazon’s first workplace pet, Rufus. 
 
 So it seems that much of that Amazon magic is canine-powered: The guide tells Harris that more than 2,000 dogs now come to work at Amazon with their owners. 
 
 Photo: Packages from Amazon. (Paul Sakuma/Associated Press) 
 
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 Tags: amazon, headquarters, tours
– After 20 years of selling a dizzying array of products online—including bricks and mortar—Amazon.com may be moving into new territory with plans for its first brick-and-mortar store. Sources tell the Wall Street Journal that the New York City store, in a prime 34th Street location across from the Empire State Building, will mostly function as a place where people can pick up goods ordered online, but it will also give people a chance to take a look at Amazon devices like Kindles before buying. Amazon plans to have the store open in time for holiday shopping, and it could be the first of many nationwide if the experiment is a success, the sources say. Retail analysts say the move could help the company take advantage of the growing popularity of ordering things online and picking them up in-store, as well as boost sales of Amazon gadgets. "There's still a segment of the population that's touchy-feely," an analyst at Creative Strategies tells USA Today. "They want to see the product up close and have it shown to them." Amazon, which was rumored to be planning a store in Seattle two years ago, declined to comment on its New York City plans, saying only that it has "made no announcements about a location in Manhattan."