In a move that would redefine the nature of US retailing, Amazon plans to take over the collapsed US JC Penney department-store giant. The dealer has a senior executive team and consultants working through the numbers and portfolio of the stores at the JC Penney ‘s Texas Headquarters.
And while JC Penney is planning to permanently shutter 245 of its 846 stores across the country as part of a restructure under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Amazon may take over as much as the entire fleet.
The Seattle-based company already dominates the US e-commerce market with a market share of around 49 percent. Small businesses across the US reportedly sell some 4000 items every minute on the platform.
However, Amazon has very little physical presence, as a digital-born company, in the form of stores for brick and mortar. In 2017, it purchased the upmarket Whole Foods food chain, which has now expanded to 500 stores in America, and developed an Amazon Go, the small, high-tech hybrid foodstuffs model, which is now 26 stores.
