First Impressions of an Amazon Bookstore
31st May 2017
The new just-opened Amazon bookstore in Manhattan made my wife think of an airport bookstore or a “gallery, where the books are displayed rather than sold”. Everything is faced out. The selection is limited. An airport bookstore would almost certainly have a different mix of titles: far fewer cookbooks (the Amazon store gives them quite a bit of space) and a much bigger selection of novels, particularly genre novels (of which there seemed to be relatively few at Amazon).
But the gestalt is similar. It’s not a store in which you are expected to spend hours browsing. You’re there to select from the most popular possible titles displayed for very rapid scanning and choosing.
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However, unlike any airport bookstore to date, or any other there will ever be until Amazon builds one, there are a few features and merchandising ideas that are special and that it would be hard for another entity to imitate.