Amazon plans to close its bookstores

[hungryboson]

"Amazon.com Inc said on Wednesday it plans to close all 68 of its brick-and-mortar bookstores, pop-ups and shops carrying toys and home goods in the United States and United Kingdom..."
from Reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/exclusive-amazon-close-all-its-physical-bookstores-4-star-shops-2022-03-02/

[Ros]

If Amazon, with its vast amounts of data on what people are buying in different locations, can't make it work, what hope for anyone else?

[LilyBLily]

It's back to the small indie bookstore model, which doesn't live on discounted books or best sellers. The cozy store where grandparents buy fancy picture books that come with toys and affluent moms wheel their tots in to browse through full-price hardcovers the owner has personally recommended.

Nobody could have foretold the pandemic and that certainly played into Amazon's experiment running aground. If it did. Amazon may simply have decided not to play that game.

[Hopscotch]

What did these Amazon bookstores look like?  I've never seen one and never hoped to.  I bet, even a jillion years from now when this planet is crowded w/Amazon copycats, we'll still have mom&pop bookstores for the reasons LilyBLily lists.

[Anarchist]

What did these Amazon bookstores look like?

I visited one. It looked like most bookstores. There were small differences, such as star ratings on titles. But ultimately, it was a venue that encountered the issues you'd expect...

- more browsers than buyers
- limited space to hold inventory

It's no surprise Amazon is closing them. It's a doomed model for the book space.

[Cephus]

What did these Amazon bookstores look like?

I visited one. It looked like most bookstores. There were small differences, such as star ratings on titles. But ultimately, it was a venue that encountered the issues you'd expect...

- more browsers than buyers
- limited space to hold inventory

It's no surprise Amazon is closing them. It's a doomed model for the book space.

Which is pretty much the problem. Locally, we have 2 bookstores, period. One is a Barnes & Noble and one is a used bookstore that we're friends with the owners. They're not doing well. They will pay you .25 for a book that you bring in and their books are going up in price pretty  consistently, up to about $5 each last time I looked. The only real saving grace IMO is that they run the local cozy mystery group, which my wife, a cozy mystery author, joined. They haven't had a meeting in a long time now.

Otherwise, for B&N, their selection is garbage. I went and looked at their sci-fi section and it was terrible. If it wasn't the latest big-name author mass market paperback or the most popular IP adaptation, they didn't have it at all. There's no way to discover new authors because they don't get new authors. More and more, they're turning into a toy store that just so happens to have books. Way back when, they had a music section, then when that didn't sell, they turned it into a massive section for Funko Pops, then when those didn't sell, it's just row after row of empty shelves taking up space.

I really don't expect Barnes & Noble to be around for that much longer. They're really not offering anything value added. I can get any book on their shelves from Amazon, usually delivered tomorrow at the latest, right to my door. Now that we've got a warehouse and a distribution center nearly in our backyard, I'm sure they're going to start dropping drones.

Bookstores have to be more than just books on a shelf. They have to offer more to get people in the door and at the moment, I don't think anyone has figured out exactly how to do that, even mom and pop stores. Those have gone extinct around here too.

[Hopscotch]

I shop at the library and order from Amazon b/c I won't buy a book I haven't read and expect to re-read often.  Still, I miss real bookstores.

[writeway]

This bookstore project was a sign of Bezos' arrogance. He seems to think anything he touches turns to gold. I KNEW this wouldn't work. Amazon became king because they drove customers AWAY from brick-and-mortar stores then you're going to go and open some? Again, a sign of arrogance. This made no sense. Amazon knows jack about running a physical store. It is much different than having an online retailer. This would be like Netflix or Hulu suddenly opening DVD stores. *shaking head*. Makes no sense. Amazon became popular BECAUSE of the online model. That's what makes Amazon Amazon. Amazon shoppers aren't going to shop in their physical stores and Amazon-haters surely won't. I'm surprised they lasted as long as they did.

[Wonder]

I liked the way the Amazon bookstores organized their shelves. They’d have a popular book facing outward, and a note that said “If you liked this one try these other ones” with a row of 3-8 similar books. Also boughts, basically.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Also boughts, basically.

Or those other authors ponied up a bunch of money to have their books there.  Or they were chosen by Amazon employees and their inclusion was unrelated to any sales or monetary factor.  Or there was some other criterion.   

I'd like to believe those books were there on merit, but my cynical side says otherwise.  I suppose it no longer matters.

This bookstore project was a sign of Bezos' arrogance.

Now that Bezos is out as CEO, I suspect these bookstores won't be the only thing Amazon decides to shutter.

[TimothyEllis]

I'm not sure if this is related, but Facebook now has an Amazon ad, which is a slider of products.

The first one I saw had what would be also-boughts for my books.

The second one had one of my books, the latest.

Also product on there as well, so not only books.

But I suddenly wondered if closing the stores was related to doing new things on social media.

Just speculating.