When Amazon started selling books online, two decades ago, it led to numerous bookstore shutdowns as much as it weakened all national book retail chains. The unmissable question is: why would Amazon open a physical bookstore now? As Amazon Books Vice President Jennifer Cast said: “We've applied twenty years of online bookselling experience to build a store that integrates the benefits of offline and online book shopping", i.e. the sales data Amazon collects every year are the best indicator of which books will be sold or not. The store, called Amazon Books and located at University Village in Seattle, offers nearly 6,000 references “based on Amazon.com customer ratings, pre-orders, sales, popularity on Goodreads, and our curators’ assessments”, as Jennifer Cast explains.
The prices at the 'real' store are the same as those on the website. With each book comes a card with its review and rating (most of them are rated with at least four stars on Amazon.com). Amazon now has a complete offer with both physical and digital stores. Will there be more Amazon Books in the future? Jennifer Cast answered to The Seattle Times: "We're completely focused on this bookstore. We hope this is not our only one. But we'll see."
*Photo: Amazon
News in the same category
During the ‘80s and ‘90s, big-box electronics outlets were doing extremely good. That was the period when new stores were positioning themselves, and the already established were further cementing their place.
From this fall in New York, Target is going to bring magical characters like Mickey Mouse and Elsa to shoppers visiting some of their stores.
The Gap, the once cool clothing brand is facing hard times and has to close 175 of its stores in North America. Europe is on the list too.
The fate of the iconic Amoeba Music store in Los Angeles was sealed when the City Council voted through zoning changes which will pave the way for the development of a high-rise building on the current site.
