E-commerce behemoth Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) is developing a drive-thru grocery store concept to be first deployed in the Silicon Valley area, the Silicon Valley Business Journal reported.
The concept would allow customers to order their groceries online, then schedule a pickup, the report said, citing sources familiar with the company's plans.
"We are seeing the emergence of the next generation of the food distribution system," Bill Bishop, chief architect at Brick Meets Click, told the newspaper.
The report claims Amazon’s first location will be in Sunnyvale, California.
It’s alleged that a real estate developer has already submitted plans for a 11,600-square-foot building and ‘grocery pick-up area’ at 777 Sunnyvale Saratoga Road.
The site in question would have eight car bays for picking up groceries.
This would be the first time Amazon has held a brick-and-mortar outlet dedicated to peddling groceries.
Amazon already runs Amazon Fresh, a grocery delivery service along with other services like Amazon Locker that enables users to collect the items they ordered from a secure location.
Apart from the drive through grocery store, the firm is also looking to launch “Prime Air” under which it can deploy drones to deliver purchases to customers in 30 min or less. Currently, the Prime Air centers are located in the US, UK and Israel.
The retailer is also testing similar set ups in other off-shore locations, says the report.
Shares rose 1 percent to $532.69 at 2:03 p.m. in New York. The stock has rallied 72 percent this year.