Quote:
Originally Posted by Nate the great
Amazon Books is unusual because it _only_ has 5,000 titles in stock. In the US this is rare to the point of nonexistence.
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And because the limited selection is on purpose, intended to highlight the selected products.
Typical american bookstores, big or small operate under a model of "stick it on a shelf and hope they find it". (Unless the publisher pays to highlight the book on a table near the entrance.)
As Daunt sneered above, a typical store of that size will have anywhere from 20-50,000 titles in stock (usually one or two copies unless it is a new release), depending on how much space is devoted to gaming, toys, and non-book merchandise. To those store operators, a store purposefully limiting their stock is a waste of space. Even if the books they stock don't sell enough to justify the space they take up.
The difference between this new store model and a typical bookstore is the difference between an upscale clothing boutique and a generic discount department store. The former presents each design on its own mannequin with appropriate accessories while the latter has most items hidden in racks for the customer to dig through.
This is an entirely new thing under the sun.