What’s the most unlikely thing for a company who’s spent the past 20 years competing with book stores to the point where they’re blamed for driving them out of business?
Yes, open a book store themselves and that’s exactly what Amazon are doing today. They’re opening a physical book store, Amazon Books, with real wooden doors and paperback and hardback tomes that you can browse and buy on the spot and carry away immediately.
They say that Amazon Books is a physical extension of Amazon.com and that they’ve applied 20 years of online bookselling experience to build a store that integrates the benefits of offline and online book shopping.
All books are face-out, and under each one is a review card with the Amazon.com customer rating and a review. Amazon also say that prices at Amazon Books are the same as prices offered by Amazon.com, so you’ll never need to compare our online and in-store prices (How tempting is it for some seller to mess with their heads and try to win the buy box at some stupidly low prices to force Amazon Books prices down?)
Amazon say that their mobile app is a great companion to visiting Amazon Books, to allow you to order online for delivery (free delivery for Prime subscribers), buy the book for your kindle or even add it to a wish list for someone else to buy, all as alternatives to taking the book home today.
Amazon books is located in Seattle’s University Village and will open seven days per week starting today at 9.30am local time.
