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There are two types of shoppers out there, those who just want to buy a specific item and those who enjoy the shopping experience. For those who remember, at one time many major malls had one or two book stores in them. I can see something like that coming back, a book store, perhaps with coffee shop, that has an array of books to browse plus POD, but I think that would be a short term thing. Right now, online shopping isn't really designed for those who like to browse, it's more for people who just want to buy a specific thing, but eventually I think they will solve that issue.
I still haven't run across an ebook store that comes close to the experience of when I use to go to B&N every couple of weeks to see what new books had come out. I'm not talking about the Starbucks, big comfy chairs and all that, but rather being able to walk over the the SF&F section, scan through the "New Books" shelves, then a quick walk through of the other shelves to see if some other title I might be interested in had been restocked. Then do the same for the other genres and subject that I am interested in. I might spend 30 minutes to an hour in the store and come out with 4 or 5 books.
The truly sad thing is that online book stores have so much untapped potential. Amazon's "People who bought this book, also bought these books" is a nice feature as is Apple's genius suggestions, but I can think of so many customizable notifications and searches that I should be able to do. Why not have a watch list that notifies me whenever a book by a favored author becomes available? Why not have authors of books that I buy automatically added to that watch list (preferable customizable so I can be prompted to add if I so choose). Eventually, someone is going to get it and start doing these things.
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