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Amazon Brings Its Physical Bookstore To New York (usatoday.com)
Amazon's first New York City bookstore, Amazon Books, will open to the general public on Thursday morning, marking Amazon's highest-profile move into bricks-and-mortar retail to date. Even as the book shop is a physical bookstore, some "Amazon" elements can be felt. From a report: While some may be excited that this is an "Amazon Store," similar to Apple and Microsoft's respective flagship stores located just blocks away, Amazon says its goal for the new store is the same as it was when the online retail giant first started two decades ago: To sell books. "We have this 20 years of information about books and ratings, and we have millions and millions of customers who are passionate," said Jennifer Cast, vice president of Amazon Books. "It really is a different way to surface great books." The 4,000 square-foot-store features roughly 3,000 books, all with their covers facing out in order to better to "communicate their own essence," Cast says. The company's recommendation system makes a physical appearance in the bookstore through an "if you like this" section, which combines the data Amazon gathers on the books listed with human curators to recommend new books. To someone who walks in to browse, it feels like a high-tech Barnes and Noble.
Amazon treats workers like garbage. I sympathize with those mistreated workers. I won't buy squat from them. I told their recruiters the same thing. Their kind of business model belongs in a Chinese sweatshop. They aren't welcome here.
Being an avid reader, I'm also a bit insulted by the way they want to enhance the visual appeal of the store at the expense of having a (much) smaller number of books. Also, a 4000 square foot bookstore is pretty small. Half Price Books in Dallas has a 55,000 square foot retail space with used books you can't even find on Amazon and a huge computer-book section that might even have a programming book on C left over from an era before the cool kids came along. The Tattered Cover in Denver has also been facing-out a lot of books (not all of them) before the news about Amazon's "great idea" ever came along. I don't have any use for a color-by-numbers bookstore made to appeal to people who's imaginations are too challenged to be interested in a book without seeing the cover art.
Real bookstores are better than the web stores ... you actually get to browse the book before buying it.
You can browse books online. Go to amazon.com and click on "look inside".
Amazon.com has millions of books available. This brick&mortar store has 3000. You can't browse a book that isn't stocked.