Slashdot Mirror
Seattle Bookstores Embrace Amazon.com
An anonymous reader writes "Even though many independent bookstores around the country blame their closing on competition from Amazon.com, bookstores in Seattle are booming thanks to Amazon's growth. It turns out many of the thousands of new workers at their downtown headquarters are avid readers who prefer shopping at the local stores. '"A lot of our customers work at Amazon," said Tracy Taylor, the general manager at the Elliott Bay Book Company, one of the city's largest independent booksellers. The store, about a mile from Amazon headquarters, last year earned what Ms. Taylor called the "first substantial profit" in almost 20 years, enough to even pay employee bonuses.'"
Amazon does have tons of books I might not find otherwise, but I still love just wandering around in a bookstore for hours, just browsing. I've found a number of great books that way, that I likely never would have seen just searching a website.
Whether it's Amazon or not is irrelevant. In any large company, there's going to be a percentage who like the dead tree copies of the book. Got to a restaurant when the staff are on a break, you'll find some folks eating Mackers/KFC/their own sandwiches.
Where you work doesn't dictate where you shop.
"The greatest lesson in life is to know that even fools are right sometimes" - Winston Churchill
give nice people who are not currently skilled enough to justify $15/hr a chance.
Except that you don't. Admit it: you wouldn't hire a homeless bum. You just want to pay the "nice people" who are currently skilled enough wages so low they can't afford housing, then fire them when they end up homeless, just so you can tell them to their faces it's their fault for making poor decisions (yeah, like working for you).
I'm surprised more bookstores haven't embraced JIT Printing: Don't see what you want on the shelf? We can print & bind it for you in 10 minutes. Make it have the ability to choose paper weight, cover (hard or softcover), font size, etc and you may be able to add enough value to sell it at a higher profit than a mass-market printing. Just being able to offer a back-catalog or out-of-print options is a huge win IMO.