Amazon is now opening stores within Kohl’s

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Amazon is embedding in old-school stores.

As the struggle between traditional retailers and Amazon continues to play out in shopping centers across the country, Kohl’s Stores announced a deal allowing Amazon to open 10 of its own 1,000-square-foot shops within Kohl’s locations. It’s just the latest sign that American retail appears to be approaching a mind-bending singularity in which online and old-school shopping collide.

Starting in October, Amazon will feature home products such as its Echo devices at 10 Kohl’s locations in the Los Angeles and Chicago area. The move comes as Jeff Bezos’ online behemoth is making a broader push to integrate online and offline shopping experiences.

Earlier this year, Sears said it had struck an agreement to sell its Kenmore brand appliances on Amazon.com, as well as integrate them with Amazon’s digital assistance Alexa. Best Buy also now sells some products that are designed to work with Alexa. The biggest Amazon push has come not in home goods but in groceries, with the company’s recently finalized $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods.

Kohl’s stock rose sharply on the news Wednesday, jumping roughly 5 percent.

You can’t really blame Kohl’s shareholders for being a bit excited by the prospect of getting a ride on Amazon’s coattails. After all, Kohl’s shares are down about 40 percent over the last 15 years. Over the same period, Amazon’s have risen by a cool 6,000 percent.

Some other items to keep in mind:

• Online retail sales are still tiny, accounting for roughly 10 percent of U.S. retail sales as a whole. That means there’s still plenty of room for Amazon to grow, which is a prime reason that investors are excited.
• Amazon actually doesn’t make that much money. Analysts at Moody’s Investors Services note that by conventional profitability measures, Amazon is actually one of the weakest retailers it follows. Nobody seems to care. Here’s why.
• Still, Amazon is clearly a force to be reckoned within the U.S. economy. Its Prime Day promotion seems to have moved monthly retail numbers for the entire country in July. And the company’s growth is a key driver in making Seattle real estate prices the fastest-rising in the U.S.