Amazon bets on universities as its brick-and-mortar expansion continues

Amazon is continuing its big push into the brick-and-mortar realm today with the news that it’s opening a new staffed pickup location at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the first Amazon pickup location in the state of Georgia.

Opening this summer, the Amazon@GeorgiaTech pickup point constitutes a 2,500-square-foot space that not only serves to let students and teachers collect their online orders, but will also serve the broader Atlanta community.

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While this isn’t Amazon’s first foray into studentville, it is the third such announcement in less than a week — last week Amazon revealed a similar hub at the University of Texas in Austin and one near Ohio’s University of Akron. As with Georgia, these two pickup locations are scheduled to open sometime during the summer. Amazon’s also planning to open locations at the University of Pennsylvania and University of California, Davis later this year.

Amazon already targets students with staffed pickup hubs at Purdue University; University of Cincinnati; University of Massachusetts Amherst; University of California, Santa Barbara; and University of California, Berkeley. The latter opened back in January and is different from other Amazon pickup points insofar as it lets students go hands-on with Amazon devices — it’s all about selling the full Amazon ecosystem.

Back in November, Amazon opened its first proper physical bookstore — Amazon Books — at University Village in Seattle, the company’s home. Recent reports suggest that Amazon will open other bookstores too, and it seems almost certain that universities will continue to play a pivotal role in the Internet giant’s expansion out into the physical world.

Students may be a “niche” market, but it’s a sizable niche — an estimated 20.2 million students enrolled in colleges and universities in the U.S. alone last fall. Rich pickings for a company renowned for thwarting the competition by offering convenience and low prices.