> I don't expect a wave of [Amazon bookstores] popping up across the country, mostly because of how other large bookstore chains have shuttered in recent years. At the same time, now I can at least imagine a world in which they might work
> If there's a case for an Amazon bookstore, it's really the case for any other store in the mall: It will always (or at least the foreseeable future) be faster to buy something in person than it will be on the internet.
i shop at independent bookstores whenever possible, and it's not because it's 'faster'.
this essay sidesteps several elephants in the room...
I'm assuming the OP is talking independent stores vs. Amazon as in "I don't wanna support the monolithic beast known as Amazon; I'd rather support mom&pop stores".... and other various data points around Amazon-is-evil-crazy-sweatshops-and-twist-arms-of-book-authors type stuff.
for one thing, i know that a local bookstore will never punish writers by, say, yanking all Hachette titles off their shelves in a vindictive, monopolistic fit.
like others have said: Amazon has been a big reason why other bookstores are going out of business, and we are culturally poorer for it. bookstores are about culture, not speed. and it's also about who drives culture: neighborhoods and curators? or a neoliberal megacorporation that holds authors and publishers in disdain?
I'd rather have a corporate bookstore than an independent one. My personal experience with independent bookstores is that they're usually biased about their stock and can be even more vindictive against authors they don't like.
It doesn't help that most bookstore owners I have met (maybe half a dozen) are aggressively opinionated about what books are "worthy."
Is that a negative, when there's another one down the street? I like people with opinions, when there's more than one to sample from. That Amazon has effectively destroyed the idea of a bookstore as a curator, without really replacing it, is still troubling to me (and random curators online don't have the same investment--that is to say, a financial one--in providing something worth considering).
This is like salt on the wound isn't it? First they undercut everyone and drive 'em out of business then they open up a shop of their own. The only thing worse would be if they opened it at the same site as a bankrupt B&N store.
They very nearly have. Barnes and Noble shut down a store at University Village a couple of years ago. The Amazon store isn't in the same building, but it's the same shopping center.
This makes me sad. The quintessential consumeristic, capitalist worldview, missing the point entirely.
Of course Amazon can offer cheaper products. They have grown to be a massive company, nobody can compete with them now and they make a massive profit that goes to the company owners.
Ignore the consumer. What about the bookstore owners who used to make a living and had to close their business because a bigger company basically put them out of business? People who might have worked generations there, perhaps even had family run businesses. Previously the income/wealth would go to many bookstore owners, now it goes to one entity - Amazon. If you don't see a problem in this simply because "hey, I get cheaper stuff, that must be good right?", then I am quite sad.
Not everything that is good for the consumer is good everyone on the way. Please remember that.
Trash! This is exactly what happens when a corporate is able to buy out entire .books domain registry, keep ebooks as retarded as they were 15 years ago and then expect to reap a little extra profit from deadpulp books.
And then it usually makes so much more sense to sell a propaganda = "Oooh, I love the feel of physical books over ebooks any day". Game on. ;)
Good article, even if personally I didn't read anything in it about the store I didn't expect. A thing that jumped on me:
> It didn't even seem weird when I snapped photos for this story on my phone
So why every single photo is labelled as "Stephen Brashear/Getty Images", while the TFA itself was apparently written by Sarah Kliff?
ETA:
Also,
> My favorite version of this interaction was between a middle-aged woman and a sales associate. He explained that the particular book she asked about wasn't available, but he could order it to the store for her. This felt absurd, given that Amazon offers free home shipping to everyone on orders of $35 or more, and to Prime members for all orders.
There are many reasons for that scene to not be in fact absurd. For instance, they may try to preserve the brick&mortar store. Maybe the woman didn't have (and didn't want) an Amazon account. Maybe she didn't have an address here or it was more convenient for her to pick it up from the shop or on her way to somewhere.
That would be my guess, but then it would also imply that the article didn't make it into the editor's inbox.
(This is not the case here, but the deplorable quality of news articles in general, even in mainstream outlets, makes me suspect that the job of editor no longer exists.)
I live pretty close to UVillage so I swung by on Friday last week.
It was honestly a great experience, and I think my initial gut feeling was that I wanted to try and hate it. But all the books are on sale for the same price as they are on the website, and there's still something pretty awesome about being able to flip through a book before buying it.
One funny anecdote - My wife and I overheard one person kind of scoffing at the whole thing while wandering in the store, "Pfft... these idiots, why pay full price here when you can just order it from their website..." Despite the fact that as you walk in there was a big orange sign "All prices the same as amazon.com"
It's interesting that the Amazon store doesn't accept cash. No books for the poor ? Gotta give them credit for pushing the digital divide as hard as they can.
RE: 2, if it was some other store that automagically linked my CC with my Amazon account, I'd also feel weird. But in an Amazon store, this seems like something totally to expected (and welcomed). The store is an extention of Amazon webpage after all.
You've never bought something (a second time) from a merchant using Square? The first time you use a Square checkout, Square asks for your email address, and creates a bidirectional {email, CCN} index. The second time, they just look up the email from the card you swiped and send your receipt automatically.
Never experienced that, no. I guess I haven't bought anything twice from Square. I think that in places where Square might be used (that I'd be (food truck perhaps?)) I'm much more likely to go to cash as a first pay method. Amazon isn't the first place I've been that cash wasn't accepted (only the second I can recall off the top of my head, though), but I think it's supremely odd that I can't use legal tender to buy things. When a till can't break a $50 or $100 bill, that's understandable, but when a business refuses to deal with cash currency at all... well that's strange to me.
This is a trend that slowly starts showing up around the world. In Oslo, they still tend to accept cash in shops, but they look at you weirdly. It's understandable - well-designed contactless card payment process is faster than cash, not to mention more hygienic.
(OTOH it can shut a store down if the Internet Connectivity Gods are in a bad mood that day.)
All the Kindle devices (which I'd say might be the highlight of going to the store -- if you've ever wondered what form factor / features you wanted, and were a bit timid from guessing and buying online -- drop by the store and find out first-hand), and the Echo device (dimming lights as a show of strength to an entertained audience), and some other things like headphones and AmazonBasics bluetooth speakers...
This sounds super weird but isn't it sad to see that a corporate was able to buy out entire .books domain registry, keep ebooks as retarded as they were 15 years ago and then open up a brick and mortar store for a little extra profit off deadpulp books?
I remember Association of American Publishers (AAP) screaming the gTLD purchase 'counter to public interest' for exactly this reason a few years ago. Can't find that article now.
Even now, I see a lot of parents/kids on weekends browsing/shopping in old style bookstores! There is a definite need. Good to see the offline stores coming back!
> It's a curated collection of items available for immediate purchase. If that doesn't sound revolutionary, it's because it isn't! It's how stores have worked for decades now.
Saying "decades" seems pretty inaccurate. We rather speak about millenniums.
I wonder if this is just a temporary phase in the store format ,and the next format will include an on-demand book printing machine and some nice way have the shopping experience around it ?
49 comments
[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 105 ms ] threadPrime now, although perhaps not for that specific book (they definitely have the headphones though)
> If there's a case for an Amazon bookstore, it's really the case for any other store in the mall: It will always (or at least the foreseeable future) be faster to buy something in person than it will be on the internet.
i shop at independent bookstores whenever possible, and it's not because it's 'faster'.
this essay sidesteps several elephants in the room...
like others have said: Amazon has been a big reason why other bookstores are going out of business, and we are culturally poorer for it. bookstores are about culture, not speed. and it's also about who drives culture: neighborhoods and curators? or a neoliberal megacorporation that holds authors and publishers in disdain?
It doesn't help that most bookstore owners I have met (maybe half a dozen) are aggressively opinionated about what books are "worthy."
Of course Amazon can offer cheaper products. They have grown to be a massive company, nobody can compete with them now and they make a massive profit that goes to the company owners.
Ignore the consumer. What about the bookstore owners who used to make a living and had to close their business because a bigger company basically put them out of business? People who might have worked generations there, perhaps even had family run businesses. Previously the income/wealth would go to many bookstore owners, now it goes to one entity - Amazon. If you don't see a problem in this simply because "hey, I get cheaper stuff, that must be good right?", then I am quite sad.
Not everything that is good for the consumer is good everyone on the way. Please remember that.
And then it usually makes so much more sense to sell a propaganda = "Oooh, I love the feel of physical books over ebooks any day". Game on. ;)
> It didn't even seem weird when I snapped photos for this story on my phone
So why every single photo is labelled as "Stephen Brashear/Getty Images", while the TFA itself was apparently written by Sarah Kliff?
ETA:
Also,
> My favorite version of this interaction was between a middle-aged woman and a sales associate. He explained that the particular book she asked about wasn't available, but he could order it to the store for her. This felt absurd, given that Amazon offers free home shipping to everyone on orders of $35 or more, and to Prime members for all orders.
There are many reasons for that scene to not be in fact absurd. For instance, they may try to preserve the brick&mortar store. Maybe the woman didn't have (and didn't want) an Amazon account. Maybe she didn't have an address here or it was more convenient for her to pick it up from the shop or on her way to somewhere.
(This is not the case here, but the deplorable quality of news articles in general, even in mainstream outlets, makes me suspect that the job of editor no longer exists.)
Maybe because Vox hired a professional photographer, and actually had them follow journalistic standards, including getting model releases?
http://www.powerwriting.com/caples.html
It was honestly a great experience, and I think my initial gut feeling was that I wanted to try and hate it. But all the books are on sale for the same price as they are on the website, and there's still something pretty awesome about being able to flip through a book before buying it.
One funny anecdote - My wife and I overheard one person kind of scoffing at the whole thing while wandering in the store, "Pfft... these idiots, why pay full price here when you can just order it from their website..." Despite the fact that as you walk in there was a big orange sign "All prices the same as amazon.com"
1) they don't take cash
2) when I swiped my card, my email address and amazon info was instantly/automatically linked w/ this transaction.
re: 2 -- we all know this sort of linking is possible, but I'd never experienced it like that. Jarring.
(OTOH it can shut a store down if the Internet Connectivity Gods are in a bad mood that day.)
I remember Association of American Publishers (AAP) screaming the gTLD purchase 'counter to public interest' for exactly this reason a few years ago. Can't find that article now.
Saying "decades" seems pretty inaccurate. We rather speak about millenniums.