Amazon Pops Up in San Francisco Mall

Amazon.com (Seattle) has been operating a pop-up shop in the Westfield San Francisco Centre to sell Kindle tablets and e-readers.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Amazon shop is selling the devices, as well as branded covers and power adapters, from vending machines. There are sample Kindles on display for shoppers to test.

In another area of the mall, a small Amazon booth – in front of a Microsoft store – allows shoppers to test the Kindle’s self-lighting screen under simulated low-light and outdoor lighting scenarios.

Amazon’s challenge in selling Kindles has been that customers don’t have a place to play with them before buying.

The Journal says Amazon has long been expected to open brick-and-mortar storefronts, just as Apple and Microsoft have, and this installation hints at what a retail front from Amazon might look like. Kindle Paperwhite e-readers are displayed on shelves beside well-worn hardcover books, like a volume of Lord Byron’s poetry and Charles Dickens’ “The Pickwick Papers.”

An Amazon spokeswoman said the temporary stores are in a handful of malls only as part of a marketing campaign, reiterating previous company statements that it had no immediate retail store ambitions.