Amazon on the brain: Kindle B&M Retail Stores?

[fjtorres]

As near as I can tell, everybody is working of the one site I linked to.
Beyond that, everybody is recirculating the same speculation.

It's all based on two assumptions:

1- Tax-free online shopping is going away because the feds are going to start taxing online sales instead of protecting them from local taxing
2- With local presence no longer a negative (after the tax-free rules go away) Amazon would increase their regional distribution centers to get (some) products closer to the shoppers, which would get them 90% of the way to having actual B&M storefronts.

Whether the rumor is just speculation, disinformation to keep #1 above from happening, or a real possibility is anybody's guess and just a guess. If #1 *does* happen, the next question is just how much extra revenue Amazon might derive from filling in that extra 10% of the path in each specific location.

As usual, only Amazon know exactly how deep their market penetration is in any given location and how much market remains after their online sales have skimmed it. And how much of their online sales would shift to the hypothetical retail sites.

The beauty of being Amazon is *they* know but everybody else has to guess.