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 ...
“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.”
A lot of my supervisors could have been cartoon characters... :)
Best to assume it’s not stupid, and discern what’s smart about it.
By doing this, Amazon...
encroaches on competing brick and mortar turf
establishes pickup options
lowers shipping costs
builds local mini warehouses
enables physical browsing
facilitates “one hour” shipping
I bought a Kindle a few years back but lately have been buying 100% hard copies.
There is nothing like browsing around a bookstore.
.
Does he hope to put Barnes and Noble out of business and then have it all?
Indeed.
Amazon rarely does stupid.
Bye bye tax free savings. Amazon saves me 8% on each purchase.
Why, you can read samples, reviews, ask questions of previous readers at Amazon site and have ebooks delivered instantly, hard copies in a couple days. Why bother with bookstores?
I only use the library online now to checkout their ebooks through Amazon. And that service is 24/7.
Absolutely no reason for more bookstores.
by embracing property taxes, sales taxes, & depreciation?establishes pickup options
pickup can't get any easier than Kindlelowers shipping costs
only applies to in-stock items. inventory carrying costsbuilds local mini warehouses
decentralization adds people, payroll costenables physical browsing
already have "see-inside" onlinefacilitates "one hour" shipping
can't be any faster than Kindle.
Books are beautiful, but heavy.
They would handle returns, do phones, have food etc. Might work.
I don't discount Amazon, I like the fact they will 'try' something unexpected/expected kinda the whole point.
Good for them, glad they want to create some jobs.
Bezos is just trying to discombobulate the public so when all of the real bookstores close, he can then say he had skin in the game too and avoid blame.
Was in Barnes and Noble yesterday, what a fantastic place.
Lots of great products, just don’t see enough customers to make these cathedrals to knowledge and beauty profitable.
I buy my books on-line from B&N and have them delivered to the nearest B&N.
That way I don’t have to worry about my packages getting stolen off my porch before I get home.
...
Perhaps Amazon will do that for books only. I don’t think the stores would be big enough to handle shipping for all their products.
From another article a few weeks ago on this subject it was speculated that these stores are for marketing and advertising the Amazon brand and probably won’t make money by themselves.
The notion makes about as much sense
as buying up newspapers.
Amazon has a wide range of products, I expect it will not be a traditional book store.
Hard copies will still be around when the EMP hits...
I would hesitate to second guess Amazon until or unless I knew just what they had in mind.
And hell you can buy practically anything on Amazon on line, some states allow you to buy beer and wine from Amazon. They can sell the idea of opening book stores etc and carry a little bit of everything, just enough of this and that to let people get an idea of what Amazon is all about, Some people think they are just about books and stuff that you would find in a book store, but they would not think of buying hardware like you buy at your local hardware store from them too, that is just an example of what Amazon carries. Amazon would probably have the store employees fill a small amount of orders within the stores from stuff that was order online, and get it deliver to local customers in a very short period of time.
Or a return center. Either way, this is about more than competing with Barnes & Noble. Companies like Sears and Penney's that are in precarious shape should be very worried.
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