Amazon opens new 4-star store in Seattle

Amazon is continuing to expand its physical retail operations. The retail giant opened a new "Amazon 4-star" store in Seattle, WA last week, marking its fourth store of the type. There are currently 4-star locations in New York City, Denver, CO and Berkeley, CA.

Amazon 4-star is different from the company's Amazon Books stores and cashier-less Amazon Go stores in that it only carries items that have been rated four stars or higher by online Amazon shoppers, along with top-selling, trending or new products.

The store concept is meant to be a direct reflection of the company's shoppers, bringing together shoppers' favorite items and making them easy to discover in a physical retail setting.

“We do of course use the data that we have available to us, like sales and trending information, stuff that our category curator teams are pulling forward,” a spokesperson for Amazon’s Physical Stores division told GeekWire. “We have our own level of human curators that take a look at all that and decide what we’re going to bring forth.”

The new Amazon 4-star location in Seattle takes up a 4,000-square-foot space and carries categories including books, kitchen supplies, seasonal items and electronics. Prices in the store are marked by digital price tags and may fluctuate throughout the day to reflect any changes in price on the Amazon e-commerce site.

The store features curated product categories to help shoppers discover items such as "Trending Around Seattle," "Most-Wished-For," "Go Out and Play" and "Upgrade Your Commute." Customer review cards are also placed alongside items, showing online customer reviews to aid in-store shoppers in making purchase decisions.