It's Wednesday: Some Thoughts About the Demise of Amazon Books - Issue #39
Well, what is there to say about the demise of bricks and mortar Amazon Bookstores? The one thing we do know is that it's not exactly an extinction level event like the demise of Borders Books. The loss of any bookstore, even an awkward one like Amazon Books is not something to be celebrated, but at least I don't feel my heart breaking like the closure of Borders was along with the loss of 16,000 jobs.
Reuters was first to the party with the announcement that the stores were closing. What wasn't exactly clear to anyone who doesn't track the bookstore portion of the Amazon bricks and mortar experiment was that, at last count in a database I have access to, of the 68 stores mentioned in the article, only 23 were "Amazon Bookstores". So it was a sizable chain, but not Barnes & Noble or Books A Million sized retailer.
They had more physical stores than say, Tattered Cover or Copperfields or Powell's. But I wonder what the actual volume was out of them.
EXCLUSIVE-Amazon to close all of its physical bookstores and '4-star' shops | Reuters — www.reuters.com Amazon.com Inc on Wednesday told Reuters it plans to close all 68 of its physical book stores, pop up shops and "4-star" stores in the United States and United Kingdom, ending some of its longest-running experiments in brick-and-mortar retail.
Along with the bookstores, Amazon will also be closing the "4 Star" and convenience stores they have opened. However, they will be concentrating more on the Amazon Fresh supermarket concept. Whole Foods, of course, is not going anywhere.
Opinion | I’m a bookseller. Here’s the difference between Jeff Bezos and me. - The Washington Post — www.washingtonpost.com It's no surprise to me that Amazon is closing its physical bookstores.
You can't claim to be a bookstore aficionado, visit Washington DC, and miss a visit to the Politics and Prose bookstore.
In this article, owner Bradley Graham points out some of the oddities about the Amazon Bookstores that made the chain seem so different from his closest chain competitor, Barnes & Noble. This included things like all the books facing out (thus limiting the available shelf space and back stock), the inclusion of non-book items into the stores, the feeling that the goal here was to learn more about shoppers buying habits than serving them with interesting reading material.
In my opinion Graham concludes that the threat to indie bookstores from Amazon isn't over. Take a quick scan (I highly advise a shallow, quick look only) at the comments. There are clearly a lot of people out there who still think there's no danger to their communities if they lose independent retail in their backyards.
Good Riddance to Amazon’s Terrible Bookstores | The New Republic — newrepublic.com Amazon is as dominant as ever—and its retail ambitions aren’t going anywhere. But booksellers can toast the end of its disastrous foray into their turf.
New Republic staffer Alex Shephard writes a fairly blistering obituary of the ill-fated chain. In it he notes how odd the layout felt, how weird their pricing system seemed to work, how shallow the and unreal the selections felt - all bestsellers.
Read the piece. You'll see what I mean.
My own personal take on all of this is that as an online retailer, Amazon was used to a certain margin in their operations. You don't get that with bookselling. Especially if everything is heavily discounted.
In the highly competitive world of supermarket retailing, you do have an opportunity to learn a lot more about your customers habits and desires. Tracking your customers purchases in a grocery store can tell you a lot more about the customer than a market basket report from a bookstore.
Hence, a six year experiment that ends when a new CEO comes into power.
Does this mean that indie bookstores and the few remaining large and small chains in this country are safe? Of course not. If you have the stomach for it, go and read the comments section to the WaPo article. You'll see what I mean.
Meanwhile, in the literary magazine section of a major national bookstore chain...
That’s all I have for you this week. Next week, we'll be back to a regular publishing schedule.
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