U.S. e-commerce giant Amazon on Thursday opened its first 4-star store in downtown Manhattan, New York.

The store, located on 72 Spring Street, is a new type of retail store helping customers discover products which they might be interested in. It carries a highly curated selection of products from the top categories across Amazon.com.

"The whole idea of Amazon 4-star is to be a place where customers can discover products, discover great products in a different way," said Mariana Garavaglia, director of store.

"For us it's all about working backwards from the customer and giving customer more choice. So Amazon 4 star is just another way that customers can discover great products and customers come in, test our advises, and see what other customers are loving," Garavaglia said.

According to official figures from Amazon, the average rating of products in the Amazon 4-star store is 4.4 stars, with more than 2.6 million customer reviews in total.

The store covers devices, consumer electronics, toys, games, books, kitchen ware, home items and more with featured sections like "Trending Around NYC," "Most-Wished-For," "Life on the Go" and "Amazon Exclusives".

Amazon is an American electronic commerce and cloud computing company based in Seattle, Washington state. On Sept. 4, 2018, with its securities value reaching one trillion U.S. dollars, Amazon became the second publicly traded U.S. company to achieve so after Apple.