Amazon

Amazon.com Inc. has launched many brick-and-mortar experiments in the past few years: bookstores, grocery pickup kiosks, cashierless convenience stores. Yet none of these have shown as much promise as the e-commerce giant’s unlikely partnership with Kohl’s Corp., the very definition of an old-school retailer.

Amazon led a Series G funding round worth £475 million (about US$575 million) with three other investors for London-based food delivery company Deliveroo.

The fintech M&A wave is sweeping over the dining and fast-food industries, with major companies like Amazon, Walmart and American Express spending on smaller firms that focus on digital food delivery and payments.

Amazon is undeniably a juggernaut in the realm of e-commerce and digital payments — but its journey was filled with missteps and failed experiments.

Amazon.com Inc. said it was hit by an "extensive" fraud, revealing that unidentified hackers were able to siphon funds from merchant accounts over six months last year.

Caving to pressure from lawmakers who recently cracked down on stores that eschew cash, Amazon has altered its business model to accept cash at its newest Amazon Go convenience stores and bookstores.

Amazon Go is caving to rising pressure from cities and states banning cashless stores and planning to introduce cash-acceptance to a model whose entire premise was about eliminating the friction of checkout with a seamless, card-based checkout.

As Amazon experiments in retail models that remove cash and plastic cards in favor of online and mobile payments, traditional retailers may have an ace up their sleeve: the gift card.

Grocers, alarmed at Amazon.com Inc.’s rapid growth in Europe, are considering fighting back with the help of a tiny Portuguese startup.

Amazon’s incursion into brick and mortar has been aggressive, but not without its share of course corrections. The latest is a new round of price cuts at Whole Foods amid whispers of slow Prime traffic at the high-end grocer.