They’ve also culled books for a section on what’s the most wished for books from online users, which included one of the books I ended up buying.
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Oh and Kindles, Fire tablets and Fire TV streaming-media devices, but that’s it. Just those and books.
It also makes you wonder: Will the store employees eventually be replaced with robots?
Coming 20 years after Amazon’s website went live, the brick-and-mortar Amazon Books seeks to build on the company’s online strengths.
“They’re the dominant retailer in the country, and they kind of got there by playing real hard ball”, said John Mutter, editor-in-chief of the book trade newsletter Shelf Awareness.
As CNET pointed out, Amazon is far from the only online tech company to enter the brick-and-mortar world. “Losers leave or are fired in annual cullings of the staff – ‘purposeful Darwinism, ‘ one former Amazon human resources director said”, a much-read New York Times story reported. The most striking thing was that a bookstore really isn’t a bookstore any more – only 50 percent of these chains were stocking books.
Consumer surveys earlier this year highlighted that shoppers would be more interested in an Amazon book store over that of an eBay or ASOS shop. But those stores offered something Amazon couldn’t: the instant gratification of owning an item the second it was purchased, as well as the personal touch of a knowledgeable sales clerk.
Amazon has promised that books will be retailing at the same price as they do online. I didn’t see many sales during the half hour I spent perusing the offers, but did notice lots of folks taking photos of the new digs. It is important to state that Amazon did not explain its strategy in opening the store or say whether it would open more retail locations.
For a first-timer, pulling out an app does seem like a surprisingly round-about way of in-store shopping, especially from a retailer known for convenience.
Seattle resident Toby Rogers held a paperback in one hand while reading an electronic version of a book on an Amazon e-reader. So if it can afford to finally do something about the Barnes & Noble-shaped bottleneck it has run into, why not? Says Seattle-based culture site City Arts, “For a place that wants to encourage community, the store prefers me staring at my phone”.
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Data is naturally at the heart of everything Amazon does, and the company will of course use this vast reservoir of knowledge to stock its shelves, picking titles that it already knows sell incredibly well in the local area. They’re feeding the growth of independent bookstores: They like the ambience, the socialization, the book-crazy salespeople who are good at recommending exactly what the customer is looking for.
