Amazon's First Bookstore Opens in Seattle

[darryl]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

This discussion makes me wonder how bad traditional American bookshops are. Here in Germany even a small bookshop will have more than 5000 titles in stock, and if you have to special order, you can pick up your book the next morning. Most shops will also deliver the book to your house without charge (a recent development, because of Amazon...)

But unfortunately you pay through the neck for this with fixed ebook pricing.

Also, as I said previously, an Amazon physical store of 5,000 books or even less which offers 1 hour (or less) delivery in store or at home from Amazon's online catalogue comes very close to a physical store stocking all of these titles.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by Gotadimple

One can sit at home and click through the book-selling web sites looking for something to read and find it - popular or not - well-reviewed or not - trending or not.

Or

One can wandering the bookshelves in a book store (new or used or both), take in the colors of the spines and the covers, and inhale the scents of the surroundings. Get the atmosphere and then find something you were not expecting - because you are on your feet, moving your eyes, and hands, and touching the real thing.

Technology may be a fast way to deliver, but it is not better than the tactile senses.

As seems to be frequently discussed, people love books for all sorts of reasons. Some love collecting and displaying books but rarely read them. For some, reading is only part of an experience which includes what I will term for want of a better description the thrill of the chase, which you seem to describe, including the touching of the books and their smell etc. If you like this, fine. What to you is a positive experience is to many a neutral or negative one. Need I mention crowds, inconvenience, poor display and organisation, limited choice etc. It depends on your point of view.

Personally, a book to me is not about the form in which it is packaged but the contents. Given this, I find ebooks and online stores much superior. It is much easier to find that gem online than by combing through endless bookstores.

Fortunately, at least at the moment, we can all indulge ourselves. If enough people share your views then the experience you value so much will remain available to you, without forcing it upon me and others who don't value that experience.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Gotadimple

One can sit at home and click through the book-selling web sites looking for something to read and find it - popular or not - well-reviewed or not - trending or not.

Or

One can wandering the bookshelves in a book store (new or used or both), take in the colors of the spines and the covers, and inhale the scents of the surroundings. Get the atmosphere and then find something you were not expecting - because you are on your feet, moving your eyes, and hands, and touching the real thing.

Technology may be a fast way to deliver, but it is not better than the tactile senses.

Is the "Or" part a law in your country? Why not bring your phone/tablet and get the best of both worlds?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by John F

Is the "Or" part a law in your country? Why not bring your phone/tablet and get the best of both worlds?

Amazon's store encourages this.

Other stores frown upon it, call it showrooming and think it is "a genteel form of shoplifting".
http://www.teleread.com/amazon/is-sh...s-shoplifting/

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/monica...f-showrooming/

http://elliott.org/is-this-right/eth...ne-buy-online/

The ABA continually rails about it...
(Shrug)

[John F]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Amazon's store encourages this.

Other stores frown upon it, call it showrooming and think it is "a genteel form of shoplifting".
http://www.teleread.com/amazon/is-sh...s-shoplifting/

http://blogs.seattletimes.com/monica...f-showrooming/

http://elliott.org/is-this-right/eth...ne-buy-online/

The ABA continually rails about it...
(Shrug)

The Amazon b&m probably won't appeal to the smell afficiados for a while? Won't it take a while for that "old book smell" to permeate the store?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by John F

The Amazon b&m probably won't appeal to the smell afficiados for a while? Won't it take a while for that "old book smell" to permeate the store?

It may never acquire it.
Odds are, no books will stay in the store long enough to start to rot.
http://www.compoundchem.com/2014/06/01/newoldbooksmell/

Makes me wonder if the proper term for book sniffers is biblionecrophilliacs?

[DiapDealer]

I love the smell of decaying books in the morning. Smells like ... victory.

[fjtorres]

The store unveiling is proving to be something of a Rorschach test.
Here's a couple more reports:
http://www.wired.com/2015/11/amazon-...g-a-bookstore/

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/1...-new-bookstore

Like the Daunt quote from the BBC piece they are more revealing of the writer of the piece than of the store itself.

So far nobody is saying anything about the details that really matter:

- how much of the store is mass market paperback and how much hardcover and trade
- how much goes to romance, how little to litfic
- how much goes to mystery, SF, Fantasy, thrillers
- how small the poetry section
- how much do they feature Apub titles
- do they highlight translated titles or sprinkle them among the relevant genres
- do they bother to carry coffee table books, art and photography books with beautiful images lots of people look at but few buy
- do they bother to carry atlases and other references
(I saw one report bemoaning that the non-fiction section was mostly self-help and biographies. Promising, that. )

And, of course, there is the biggest question of all, which will determine the attitude of the (surprisingly quiet so far) BPHs: are they doing front table payola?

What intrigues me about this store is that, historically, B&M stores operate under a very strong Pareto principle: over 80% of profit comes from less than 20% of the titles but in general and, bestsellers aside, the store doesn't really know *which* books will be contributors and which will be wallpaper.

But Amazon does.
(Or at least has a good idea with established authors, even midlisters.)

The premise here seems to be to strip out the slow sellers and low-rated titles and showcase the books most likely to delight readers.

The theory is solid.
The outcome is uncertain.
Lots of retail theories flounder in the face of consumer behavior.

Which is what makes this an interesting experiment.
Wish I were close enough to visit and see for myself.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

- how much do they feature Apub titles

What is an "Apub" title? Haven't come across that expression before.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What is an "Apub" title? Haven't come across that expression before.

At a guess, Amazon-published. But I could be wrong.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What is an "Apub" title? Haven't come across that expression before.

Sorry.
Yes, AmazonPublishing imprints, collectively referred to as apub because, well, that is their web address:

http://www.apub.com/

...and because, confusingly, Amazon Publishing is one of their smaller less successful imprints.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_Publishing

By now they are probably about as big as S&S in unit sales. Maybe dollar sales, too.

[HarryT]

Thanks for clarifying that.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks for clarifying that.

Amazon really needs to clarify that naming overlap.
Although it probably helps with the New York media that regularly confuses the Amazon Publishing imprint with the whole operation.

The vitriol would probably run an order of magnitude higher if the "anything but Amazon" crowd realized how little the boycott has affected the non-NYC parts of APub. All they've done is funnel APub sales to Amazon.com and Kindle so Amazon LLC gets both the publisher and retailer cuts.
(The books are available to all retailers but B&N organized a boycott right away that the ABA heartily endorsed. Borderline illegal but Amazon doesn't care. The new store might be part of Amazon's reaction to the boycott. Hencecmy interest in knowing how those books are handled.)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

(The books are available to all retailers but B&N organized a boycott right away that the ABA heartily endorsed.

What is the cause of their discontent? I hadn't heard about this boycott. Doesn't seem to be been terribly effective .

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What is the cause of their discontent? I hadn't heard about this boycott. Doesn't seem to be been terribly effective .

No, it isn't effective.
And it is self-defeating. The kind of "high minded" stunt B&N devotes time and effort to instead of fixing their online store. The whine is that Amazon gets *more* exclusive title deals. (As if Apple, Kobo, B&N, etc don't have their own exclusive deals. )

Here's the Guardian take:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...-boycott-grows

Here's a more thoughtful take:
http://www.bookbusinessmag.com/post/...books-million/

(Note the date. The three year old rumors were pretty accurate.)

Generally, when companies worry more about hurting their competitors than improving their business it is a sign they've lost the competition.