Amazon's bidding frenzy for its second North America headquarters (HQ2) has drawn 238 proposals from 54 states, provinces, districts and territories across North America, said the company Monday. Amazon expects to invest more than $5 billion in construction and reach an eventual base of 50,000 "high-paying jobs" in what will be a "full equal" to the company's Seattle campus. The e-commerce giant's direct hiring and investment, construction and ongoing operation of Amazon HQ2 will create "tens of thousands of additional jobs and tens of billions of dollars in additional investment in the surrounding community," said Amazon, which will announce the winner next year.

Online shoppers plan to spend 70 percent more than in-store shoppers this holiday season, said NPD in a Tuesday report. Online shoppers anticipate spending an average of $793 this holiday season and those planning to shop exclusively in brick-and-mortar stores expect to spend an average of $467, said NPD. “On average, U.S. consumers anticipate doing nearly 40 percent of their 2017 holiday shopping online,” up from about a third only two years ago, it said. NPD canvassed nearly 3,800 consumers online aged 18 and older in September and found almost three-quarters plan to do at least some of their holiday shopping online this year, “with even higher likelihood among Millennials and Gen X,” it said. “Topping the list of anticipated holiday shopping destinations were online-only sites, like Amazon, Ebay, and Etsy,” noted by 66 percent of consumers canvassed in the survey, it said. Mass merchants and discount stores and their websites were the second most popular planned destination, followed by national chains and department stores, it said.

Continuing its efforts to pull college students into the Amazon ecosystem, Amazon announced Prime Student, a half-off discount program for college students enrolled in two- or four-year U.S. colleges. Prime Student is $5.49 a month after a six-month trial for all the benefits of Prime, with no annual commitment, said Amazon. Perks of a Prime membership include free two-day shipping, same-day delivery in more than 5,000 cities and one-day pickup on “millions” of items at campus locations and Prime Now in 30 major cities, it said. Prime membership also includes unlimited streaming on select movies and TV shows, access to Prime Music, access to select books and photo storage, and discounts on games. In August, Amazon announced the Instant Pickup service with staffed locations near universities in Los Angeles; Berkeley; Columbus; College Park, Maryland; and Atlanta.

The online sales tax advantage for e-commerce could get a hearing at the Supreme Court, a move heralded by brick and mortar retailers that have pushed Congress for more than a decade to equalize the playing field. South Dakota yesterday asked the Supreme Court to end the competitive advantage created by the court's 1992 ruling, Quill Corp v. North Dakota, which said states can't require out-of-state retailers to collect the taxes owed on sales to consumers within its borders unless the retailer also has a physical location in the state. "South Dakota has brought a well-designed challenge to Quill that respects the sovereignty of the U.S. Supreme Court and asks the Court to reconsider its decision in light of the sweeping advances in technology that the Court could not possibly have foreseen when it issued its decision 25 years ago," said Retail Litigation Center President Deborah White in a news release. "The artificial price advantage for online retailers that the United States Supreme Court unknowingly created in Quill has done significant damage to thousands of brick and mortar retailers, and meant billions in lost revenue for state and local governments in the intervening quarter of a century."

It’s “too soon to see any impact” on Barnes & Noble’s New York stores from the two Amazon brick-and-mortar stores that opened recently in Manhattan, said Barnes & Noble CEO Demos Parneros on a Thursday earnings call. “It’s a different kind of bookstore,” Parneros said of the two Manhattan Amazon locations, one that opened in Columbus Circle in May, the other on 34th Street in the past two weeks. “Our stores are really much more about discovery and spending time walking through stores, examining different categories,” he said. “I think their stores are much smaller and they have a different purpose.” Barnes & Noble will “focus on reinventing our new type of prototype store,” which will be bigger than Amazon’s, but smaller than the “existing average” Barnes & Noble store, he said.

Amazon announced an 855,000-square-foot fulfillment center in North Randall, Ohio, to supplement existing facilities in Etna and Obetz. The Cleveland-area center will create more than 2,000 full-time positions for employees who will pick, pack and ship smaller customer items such as electronics, toys and books, it said.

Financially ailing Sears is “committed to unlocking the potential of our brands and business through innovative partnerships,” such as the recent distribution agreement between Kenmore and Amazon (see 1707210042), said Chief Financial Officer Rob Riecker on a Thursday earnings call. That agreement is “a major milestone” for Kenmore because it's "the broadest distribution to date of Kenmore home appliances outside of Sears-branded stores and related online retail platforms,” said Riecker. The Amazon partnership also is expected to open new “revenue streams” for the Kenmore, Sears Home Services and Innovel Solutions businesses, he said. With Kenmore smart appliances embedded with Amazon Alexa now available for immediate purchase and installation, the agreement also gives “a convenient, integrated offering to the millions" who shop Amazon every day, he said.

A pack of Beats by Dr. Dre wired headphones led the bid count for CE products at 48 in a Liquidation.com surplus sale by wholesaler Kingdom Supply that began Thursday. The 15 refurbished Beats headphones, tagged with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $3,000, showed a high bid Thursday afternoon of $675, with Monday as a closing date. A lot of 17 Moto G returned smartphones, carrying an MSRP of $3,250, had 21 bids topping out at $299, and 81 returned Microsoft Xbox One controllers, with an MSRP lot price of $4,143, drew 41 bids as of Thursday, with a high of $490 and a Wednesday close date. Other lots included 33 refurbished LG Tones Bluetooth headphones (MSRP, $3,930), 43 new Chromecast Ultra media players (MSRP, $3,010), 157 returned Monster products including headphones and speakers (MSRP, $7,038) and 87 returned Plantronics wireless headphones (MSRP, $6,114). Participants are required to register for the auction with Liquidity Services.

Amazon continued its expansion to brick-and-mortar locations Tuesday with the launch of Instant Pickup, a service tied to staffed pickup locations near UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley. The free service, available to Prime and Prime Student members with delivery times of “two minutes or less,” delivers to self-service lockers, said Amazon. The service is also to go online in Columbus, Ohio, College Park, Maryland, and Atlanta, said Amazon, but those locations weren’t yet operational Tuesday afternoon, according to the website. Products available via the new service are a “curated selection of daily essentials,” said Amazon, listing the Amazon Echo, Dot, Kindle Fire devices and Kindle e-readers as examples of electronics available through the service. Other items listed were phone chargers, food, cold drinks and personal care items. Prime members can browse the selection, place an order, add last-minute items to an online order and pick products up from a self-service locker, it said. Amazon operates 22 staffed pickup locations on or near college campuses across the country, it said. It didn’t respond to questions on expansion plans beyond the 22 locations.

Less than a month after its third Prime Day retail sales event, Amazon is launching a new event day next week to support order fulfillment. Amazon is looking to fill 50,000 jobs in the U.S., it said Wednesday, announcing the first Amazon Jobs Day, Aug. 2, at 10 of its fulfillment centers. On Jobs Day, Amazon will open fulfillment centers in Baltimore; Etna, Ohio; Chattanooga; Fall River, Massachusetts; Hebron, Kentucky; Kenosha, Wisconsin; Kent, Washington; Robbinsville, New Jersey; Romeoville, Illinois; and Whitestown, Indiana, from 8 a.m. to noon local time, giving tours and information sessions on work life at Amazon, it said. The company plans to make “thousands” of on-the-spot job offers to qualified candidates, it said, and it’s hiring for “tens of thousands” full-time pack and ship jobs at fulfillment centers. In Buffalo and Oklahoma City, Amazon will hold off-site Jobs Day events from 8 a.m. to noon local time for part-time positions, some with benefits, it said. In addition to usual benefits, including up to 20 days paid vacation, Amazon is touting a paid-leave benefit that allows employees to share their Amazon paid leave with a spouse or domestic partner without paid leave, it said. Amazon will cover the event on Facebook Live.