Posted on 02/02/2016 3:34:50 PM PST by Red in Blue PA
(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc is planning to open hundreds of brick-and-mortar bookstores, the head of a major U.S. mall operator said.
Such an expansion, which Amazon itself has not confirmed, would position the world's No. 1 online retailer as a competitor to booksellers such as Barnes & Noble Inc. At present, Amazon operates a single bookstore in its home city, Seattle.
"You've got Amazon opening brick-and-mortar bookstores and their goal is to open, as I understand, 300 to 400 bookstores," Sandeep Mathrani, chief executive of General Growth Properties Inc, said on Tuesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
This just doesn’t make sense to me. Books? What? Cheaper? Where you gotta drive to? Are they trying to replace library’s?
Hard to believe.
I think this is a big mistake...
This could be interesting. A brick and mortar for deliveries based on Amazon.com
Forgo the 99 bucks and still get 2 day shipping.
Just a thought.
There’s lots of empty retail space across the country. Leases should be dirt cheap. Maybe he has figured out a way to use a physical location to act as a “showroom” and a place for customers to order products to be delivered?
That way I don't have to worry about my packages getting stolen off my porch before I get home.
Maybe Amazon is thinking along those lines.
Also, the main reason for them to NOT have brick & mortar stores is because of the unfair advantage they had of not having to collect sales tax from their customers. But now that that advantage is being whittled away, there's no reason for them not to try their hand at brick and mortar retail.
I honestly don’t think it is a good decision. I’d like to see the presentation whoever thinks this a good idea that sold it to Amazon upper management is a real money maker.
Was it a Hope and Change plea?
Readers love to browse books in a store, then buy from Amazon. Now that most bookstores have closed, browsing is way off and Amazon book sales are down. So Amazon needs to open up physical stores in order to encourage browsing again.
I don’t get this either. I liked Borders, went there all the time. They had a much better history selection than Barnes & Noble. But Amazon buried them.
A couple months ago I bought a Kindle. I absolutely love it. I will never go completely away from paper, but for travel I can take my library with me.
You don’t need a brick and mortar store to download an e-book.
It's pretty good now - Prime and a two-day delivery. If this gets them to a one-day delivery they might stand a chance. Otherwise, how on earth will they keep the place competitively stocked? This one might be fun to watch.
That would be stupid.
Books? The only books I buy are collectible gun/firearms reference books that have been in print for years.
You can get most any other type of information (including firearms) online. I like having reference books because I use them frequently. I just can’t imagine this being a profitable staple for them for the general consumer.
We’ll see how it all shakes out. I certainly wouldn’t put any money in it.
This is a retail footprint for amazon. Who knows exactly what Amazon will really do with it. This could be more about electronics and phones. Who knows.
So, he was just driving Borders and Barnes & Nobles out of business?
If customers can get 2 day delivery based on the wide reach of Amazon, they may go for it as long as the Prime membership is waived.
400 stores isn’t much as you stated. The strip malls are vacant and losing money on taxes.
I see it as a delivery outlet.
A lot of people still want ‘hold in their hands’ books.
What if Amazon is going to do Print On Demand right in the store?
Any book in Amazon’s library, in your hand in 10 minutes.
My daughter works at a B&N. She’s in the children’s dept. and absolutely loves it.
I think they are grooming her to supervise it. She’s getting lots of opportunities to plan and run special events, story time etc. They had a small Maker Fair a few weeks ago and last week she donned the Clifford the Big Red Dog costume for some event.
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