Amazon to open physical store in New York City offering same-day delivery

NEW YORK, Dec. 11 (UPI) -- Online retailer Amazon.com will open a physical location in downtown Manhattan in an attempt to further compete with brick-and-mortar stores such as Barns and Noble.

Located at 7 West 34th St., directly across from the Empire State Building and just a block from Macy's flagship location, Amazon's newly-rented building will primarily serve as a merchandise pickup window for online customers and a warehouse for the retailer's same-day bicycle fleet servicing Amazon Prime Now customers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the location will "likely one day will feature Amazon devices like Kindle e-readers, Fire smartphones and Fire TV set-top boxes."

Wells Fargo analyst Matt Nemer classified the decision to open a physical store as "about marketing the Amazon brand."

"Same-day delivery, ordering online and picking up in store are ideas that are really catching on. Amazon needs to be at the center of that."

While Amazon has been on the front of consumers' minds since famously unveiling plans to deliver packages with flying drones, the company's attention is currently focused on bicycle delivery to compete with the same-day experience of brick-and-mortar retailers.

"The Amazon.com service is not going to happen in six months, a year, or several years," Phil Finnegan, an analyst with the aviation consultancy Teal Group, told CBS News.

"[Drone delivery]'s going to take a long time."