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Originally Posted by darryl
Your other points are good ones. I don't live in the US and have never had the pleasure of visting an Amazon books store, but my understanding is that they stock a relatively small number of titles carefully selected using their extensive online data for the area. I also understand stock turns over fast. Early criticism was levelled at these shops for the relatively paltry number of books carried. However, I posted once before that perhaps a better way to look at an Amazon store was as if there was a transparent wall at the back looking into an Amazon warehouse with just about every book you could want available. In cities with Amazon warehouses close by it is not inconceivable that you could order a book not on the premises, go off and have a coffee and cake for an hour and come back to pick up your book. And yes, Amazon stores promote their hardware, promote books and other products, promote Prime Membership. The potential advantage of even one such store in each large US City are enormous.
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I live in the US, and I've never even SEEN an Amazon bookstore, much less been in one! If you don't live in a handful of large cities, you aren't likely to see one either. These things appear to cater to the hip and the terminally young. Those of us in flyover country will likely never see one.
I suspect part of their purpose is to make Amazon 'cool' and 'hip' to those with options. Amazon already has the customers like me, we are pretty much internet shoppers by need, not choice!