SEATTLE — Amazon is closing down its dozens of Pop-Up stores in the United States, as it both expands and tries to make sense of its growing retail operations. The Amazon Pop-Up stores are stand-alone kiosks, often in malls, that showcase the company’s devices, like its Fire tablets and Echo speakers. Some are inside Kohl’s or grocery stores. Amazon’s website listed Pop-Up stores in more than 20 states. The stores are closing even as Amazon is otherwise expanding its physical retail presence. Before the holiday season, Amazon opened a gift shop-like store, Amazon 4-Star, in New York’s SoHo neighborhood, and for several years it has sold books and gadgets at Amazon Books stores. In 2017, it bought Whole Foods, greatly expanding its footprint. “After much review, we came to the decision to discontinue our Pop-Up kiosk program,” an Amazon spokeswoman said in a statement, “and are instead expanding Amazon Books and Amazon 4-Star, where we provide a more comprehensive customer experience and broader selection.”<doc-sep>Retail consultant Matt Bailey (left) helps customer Geoff Witherspoon at the Amazon Pop-Up in the Union Station Whole Foods on Thursday, March 22, 2018. Amazon will close all of its 87 pop-up locations in the U.S. in April, the company said Wednesday. Amazon has pop-ups inside Whole Foods locations, Kohl's stores and malls around the U.S. The shops let customers try Amazon products — such as Fire tablets, Kindle e-readers, Echo smart speakers — and Amazon services, like Prime Video, Audible and Kindle Unlimited. "Some of them were staffed by Kohl's associates, some were staffed by Amazon employees," a Kohl's spokesperson explained to CNBC when asked if there will be layoffs. "For Kohl's associates, they'll assume other roles within the store." "We work to find opportunities within the company for employees," Amazon said. "We don't share further information on our employees." "Across our Amazon network, we regularly evaluate our businesses to ensure we're making thoughtful decisions around how we can best serve our customers," an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC. "After much review, we came to the decision to discontinue our pop-up kiosk program, and are instead expanding Amazon Books and Amazon 4-star, where we provide a more comprehensive customer experience and broader selection."<doc-sep>Bloomberg (Bloomberg) -- As Covid-19 continues to ravage India, financial professionals across the country are grappling with an increasingly surreal disconnect between the epidemic’s devastation and a record-breaking boom in local markets.The world’s worst coronavirus outbreak has battered India’s economy and lifted its official Covid death toll to more than 318,000 -- a figure that experts say is likely a significant undercount.And yet investors continue to snap up Indian assets, fueling a 65% rally in the Nifty 50 Index over the past 12 months that has outpaced every other major equity benchmark worldwide. The measure’s surge to a record on Thursday has coincided with the fastest rate of Indian initial public offerings since 2017 and an unprecedented flood of foreign-currency bond issuance by local companies.While the combination of pandemic pain and financial-market euphoria is hardly unique to India, nowhere else has the contrast been so extreme.Bulls say the gains are justified by central bank stimulus at home and abroad, along with signs that the current virus wave may be peaking and optimism that India’s long-term economic growth potential will emerge from the crisis intact. Skeptics point to overly rosy earnings estimates and the risk of further outbreaks in a country where vaccination rates remain stubbornly low. India’s central bank weighed in on Thursday, warning in its annual report that the surge in stocks “poses the risk of a bubble.”What’s clear is that financiers on all sides of the debate are stretched thin. Booming markets have left the industry swamped with work at a time when many employees have been sickened by the virus. Some have had to franticly search for medical help after hospitals were overrun and oxygen supplies fell short. Almost everyone has at least one friend or family member who has died.“You feel numb, as if we are in the midst of a war and are losing people one after the other,” said Vikaas Sachdeva, the Mumbai-based chief executive officer of Emkay Investment Managers Ltd., who lost four members of his extended family to the virus.Sachdeva expects Indian markets to be volatile in the near term as investors weigh uncertainties around the vaccination program and the possibility of a third wave. His firm has been buying shares of Indian companies with “high quality” management, betting that the country’s long-term investment case remains intact.India’s $2.9 trillion stock market has been buoyed in part by resilient demand from international investors, who’ve purchased a net $34.9 billion of shares over the past 12 months. While they pared holdings in April and early May, buying by local mutual funds and insurance companies has helped fill the gap. A steady decline in reported Covid cases since mid-May -- along with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to avoid another nationwide lockdown -- have added weight to calls for further market gains.Indian companies have taken advantage of the exuberance in markets to raise about $4 billion via public offerings since the start of the year, on track for the busiest first-half since 2017, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.“The IPO boom is being driven by Indian technology companies coming of age with businesses doing better than expected,” said Sunil Khaitan, India head of global capital markets at Bank of America. “Tech companies are advancing their fundraising plans and financial sponsors also believe this is a good time to bring in public market investors in these companies amidst ample global liquidity.”Khaitan expects India IPO volumes to more than double in 2021 from the previous year.The surge in activity has left some financial firms scrambling to complete deals after employees were sidelined by the virus. The head of equity capital markets at a Mumbai-based investment bank, who asked not be named discussing private matters, said that at one point 25% of his 40-person group was infected.About 200,000 Indian bank employees have been infected and 1,200 have died since the pandemic began, the industry’s largest union estimated this month.Among the biggest risks for India market optimists is another virus wave. Just 3.2% of the population has been fully vaccinated, versus 39.7% in the U.S. and 10.1% in Brazil, according to Bloomberg’s Covid-19 Tracker.The Indian economy’s recovery from last year’s recession is already showing signs of sputtering. The country lost 10 million jobs in May, according to private research firm Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy Pvt. Among the 40 companies in the Nifty 50 index that have posted quarterly results so far, more than half have missed analysts’ estimates. While India’s central bank predicts the economy will grow at a 10.5% pace this fiscal year, other forecasters including S&P Global Ratings and Moody’s Investors Service have recently cut their estimates to below 10%.“If this Covid situation keeps affecting newer areas and new strains keep emerging, then there is a problem for the near term,” said Deepak Jasani, head of retail research at HDFC Securities Ltd.Sachdeva, the Emkay CEO, said Covid will impact him and his colleagues in ways that go far beyond their work in finance. He’s reading “The Difficulty of Being Good” by Gurcharan Das, who writes about his search for a meaningful life.“The pandemic has brought about a change in many of us and we are more aware of things that matter most in life,” Sachdeva said. “We would though have to see if this is indeed a permanent change when life comes back normal.”(Updates death toll in second paragraph)More stories like this are available on bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.<doc-sep>Stocks extended their losing streak Wednesday despite a lack of news on trade. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES:^DJI) and the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) both fell, with losing stocks outnumbering winners by more than 2 to 1. Today's stock market Index Percentage Change Point Change Dow (0.78%) (200.23) S&P 500 (0.81%) (22.52) Defensive utilities were the only sector in the green today, with the Utilities Select SPDR ETF (NYSEMKT:XLU) edging up 0.3%. Consumer stocks were particularly weak; the Consumer Discretionary Select SPDR ETF (NYSEMKT:XLY) fell 1.2%. As for individual stocks, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) is closing its pop-up stores in the U.S., and Kroger (NYSE:KR) got crushed after announcing fourth-quarter results. Amazon sharpens its physical store focus Amazon is shutting down all 87 of its pop-up stores in the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), as the company refines its strategy for physical retail locations. Shares slipped 2.6%. The shops are small kiosks in malls, Whole Foods, and department stores such as Kohl's, staffed by Amazon employees and selling Amazon products like Echo smart speakers. In a conference call earlier this week, Kohl's had said that it was closing its 30 Amazon store-within-a-store concepts, but placing the Amazon products in other departments and extending the assortment to 200 of its stores. Amazon said last quarter that it had also launched the kiosks in six European countries during the holiday season. Amazon is more than willing to experiment, which can mean discarding ideas that aren't working. This news comes just days after reports that the online giant plans to launch a new supermarket chain that will complement its Whole Foods unit by offering a different variety of products and lower prices. Far from pulling back from physical stores, the tech titan is still investing its Amazon Go concept, Amazon 4-star, and Amazon Books. Check out the latest earnings call transcript for Amazon. Investors were expecting more progress in Kroger's transformation Grocery chain Kroger missed expectations for the fourth quarter and gave disappointing profit guidance for 2019, and shares sank 10%. Sales fell 9.5% to $28.1 billion, below analysts' expectations of $28.4 billion. GAAP earnings per share came in at $0.32, which was below the company's guidance of $0.34 to $0.49. Adjusted EPS of $0.48 missed the analyst consensus of $0.52. Identical-store sales excluding fuel increased 1.9%, which was slightly better than the full year. Kroger said to expect identical-sales growth in 2019 to improve to a range of 2% to 2.25% with EPS of $2.15-$2.25, below expectations of $2.26. Kroger's results were diminished by investments the company is making in digital sales, store space optimization, and aggressive pricing, but the company said on the conference call some of these headwinds would turn into tailwinds this year. Analysts on the call were clearly disappointed by the lack of progress the company is making and doubted its guidance for 2019.<doc-sep>
Amazon will close 87 pop-up retail stores in malls, Whole Foods locations and Kohl’s stores across 21 U.S. states, a sign that the tech giant is still refining its physical retail vision. The closures, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, and confirmed by Amazon, could happen by the end of April. The years-long experiment focused on showcasing Amazon devices like the Echo and Kindle in small formats often in the middle of a mall or larger store. Amazon has a pair of pop-up stores in Washington state, according to its physical retail directory. In a statement, Amazon said “after much review” it decided to discontinue its pop-up stores and the focus going forward will shift to “expanding Amazon Books and Amazon 4-star, where we provide a more comprehensive customer experience and broader selection.” Here is the full statement from Amazon: Across our Amazon network, we regularly evaluate our businesses to ensure we’re making thoughtful decisions around how we can best serve our customers. After much review, we came to the decision to discontinue our pop-up kiosk program, and are instead expanding Amazon Books and Amazon 4-star, where we provide a more comprehensive customer experience and broader selection. We look forward to opening additional locations of both stores this year. We are excited to introduce even more customers to these in store shopping experiences where they can discover highly rated books, toys, games, home and kitchen goods, electronics, Amazon devices and more. In 2016, reports popped up that Amazon planned to open roughly 100 of these stores, and the company got pretty close. The pop-ups are part of an expanding brick and mortar portfolio that includes Amazon Books, Amazon Go, AmazonFresh grocery pickup locations and Amazon 4-star stores for items rated highly on Amazon. As Amazon winds down the pop-up experiment, it is expanding these other retail concepts. The company just opened its third Amazon Go store in San Francisco, and the 11th overall. Recent reports suggest the company is set to embark on a major grocery expansion. And at the same time, construction actively suddenly restarted at a vacant retail site in Seattle that has long been linked to Amazon.