topic Re: Amazon's New Book Store in Book Club

Amazon's New Book Store

BornToShop — Fri, 26 May 2017 15:51:47 GMT

http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/25/technology/business/amazon-books-new-york-city/

Interesting...no cash transactions, only 4-5 star rated books available in the store, Prime members get the lower price. How Amazon continues to change to re-invent the wheel is amazing. I do not like what they are doing to the bricks & mortar stores.

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

Dusty1 — Fri, 26 May 2017 22:35:08 GMT

Amazon isn't doing anything to stores. We are.

I will be sad if I one day need to go into a store & there isn't anything there because I mainly did my shopping online & they all closed down.

I used to love nothing more than going to a mall or a store & shopping. I don't even remember when I was last in a mall.

I do run into Kohl's or Meijer or WalMart when I need to, but I mainly shop on Amazon or QVC.

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

sunala — Fri, 26 May 2017 23:30:34 GMT

@Dusty1 wrote:
Amazon isn't doing anything to stores. We are.
I will be sad if I one day need to go into a store & there isn't anything there because I mainly did my shopping online & they all closed down.
I used to love nothing more than going to a mall or a store & shopping. I don't even remember when I was last in a mall.
I do run into Kohl's or Meijer or WalMart when I need to, but I mainly shop on Amazon or QVC.

I have a huge mall a few miles from my home. I probably haven't been there in a few years, but last week I stopped by while my hubby waited in the car, just to exchange an item. It took me all of 10 minutes in the store, but it was a long walk to the store and back to the car. Honestly, I still hate malls. So much walking and not much in the way of rewards. I passed loads of stores but nothing interested me, not even Sephora. I guess I'm just not into shopping these days.

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

tansy — Sat, 27 May 2017 18:58:51 GMT

I disagree about Amazon not destroying bookstores. First B&N and Borders managed to drive small bookstores out of business and then Amazon went after those two stores. My area lost a Borders a few years ago and now another B&N has gone under:/

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

jackthebear — Sat, 27 May 2017 01:00:47 GMT

One opening near me soon

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

sandraskates — Sat, 27 May 2017 01:17:12 GMT

A family owns about 3-4 bookstores in my area. Although they shrunk down their biggest store to about 1/3 of the size it once was, they seem to be holding their own.

The stores are inviting and pleasant. Along with books they sell unique cards and gifts, and have a coffee shop inside. And they are the only place in the area that sells our beloved Kliban Cats calendar each year.

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

gardenman — Sat, 27 May 2017 11:44:18 GMT

TImes change and shopping evolves. What Amazon is doing is essentially what Sears and Roebuck used to do; sell everything anyone can want and deliver it to their door. Sears did it with catalogs, Amazon does it with a website. Sears was perfectly positioned to be what Amazon has become back when they had their catalogs and merchandise distribution centers. Sears leadership didn't foresee the future and decided to become more like Walmart and KMart instead of stay how they were. It was a bad decision. Had they continued to sell everything to everyone and evolved from paper catalogs to a website, Amazon would likely still be selling only books.

There were also catalog stores with showrooms for a while, Basco, Best, and Service Merchandise among them. I suspect we're heading back that way nowadays where you can order anything you want from an online catalog/website and then either pick it up in the store or have it delivered. Combine a modern smartphone with an app and a Best/Service Merchandise type showroom where the shopper can browse the aisles and scan any item they want to buy, then finalize their purchase on the phone, pay for it on the phone, and have it all ready for pickup or delivery a few seconds later and you'd likely have a pretty popular store.

The catalog showroom type store setup is pretty space efficient and seriously cuts down on theft. With modern automation and robots collecting customer's orders as they shop and the payment and ordering all done by phone, you'd need minimal workers to serve a large number of customers quickly and efficiently. A large warehouse area connected to the showroom with robots gathering the products ordered, much like how Amazon runs their warehouses now, could be pretty efficient and effective. Done right, a chain of stores based on that model could actually ding the Walmarts of the world.

The two things that are Walmart's weakness are staffing (they have a lot of employees) and theft. A Service Merchandise type store model with only display items in reach pretty much ends theft. A fully automated ordering, buying, and delivering system would reduce the number of employees needed. Done right, such a system could be faster and easier for the consumer, provide lower prices, provide greater variety, and still be quite profitable for the owner. Amazon's pretty nicely positioned to create such stores these days. All they really need to do is take a warehouse like they have now and add a showroom.

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

Imaoldhippie — Sat, 27 May 2017 12:05:44 GMT

A few years ago the last time I was in a mall, most stores were geared to teens and up, clothes, music and the sales people looked like they were 15 if a day. I happen to wander in, not really knowing what the store was, and all the clerks looked at me as if I had just fallen out of a tree. No one said a word to me and I quickly left the store. Lots of empty stores and Sears, Pennys, Macy, etc did not have much to appeal to a older lady. Last time I was in a mall. I now shop exclusively at Cato and online, I buy my books at Amazon. To me this is very sad times not only for BM stores but for our while country. I dont think the changes are good, I probably wont be around to see it but I think this is the beginning of then end of our country and freedom. Sorry did not mean to get political. Just saying..............

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

Imaoldhippie — Sat, 27 May 2017 12:09:51 GMT

Wasnt there a store that did this several years ago and went belly up? You ordered by flier or catalog by phone and by some displays at the store and then went to the pick up area and got your order. I cant remember the name.

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

JanetsGirl — Sat, 27 May 2017 17:18:10 GMT

I think another nail in the brick-and-mortar bookstore coffin is the growing availability to download for free ebooks from the local library. I do that quite a lot now. Why pay for a book when I can read it for free on my device?

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

gardenman — Sat, 27 May 2017 19:58:46 GMT

@Imaoldhippie wrote:
Wasnt there a store that did this several years ago and went belly up? You ordered by flier or catalog by phone and by some displays at the store and then went to the pick up area and got your order. I cant remember the name.

There were three such chains that I'm aware of. Basco, Best and Service Merchandise. They all went out of business between 1997 and 2002. It was a clever concept at the time but the hassle of filling out the order forms and then waiting for the order to be retrieved annoyed some people. Doing it all by smartphone and using robots to gather the items while the customer shopped could make it a very fast, easy shopping experience these days however.

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

LoriLori — Sat, 03 Jun 2017 12:02:41 GMT

Two things I love about Amazon's reinvention of the bookstore:

-- that every book has four stars or above. Overall I find these reviews average out fairly accurately unless it's a book with political content where people write reviews to make points or attempt to be funny. I read these reviews and rely on them and trust most of them

-- that every single book's cover faces the consumer. No titles shelves by the spine. This is a wonderful innovation IMO (made possible by culling the inventory to four-star and above books).

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

lovescats — Sat, 03 Jun 2017 17:36:43 GMT

@LoriLori wrote:
Two things I love about Amazon's reinvention of the bookstore:

-- that every book has four stars or above. Overall I find these reviews average out fairly accurately unless it's a book with political content where people write reviews to make points or attempt to be funny. I read these reviews and rely on them and trust most of them

-- that every single book's cover faces the consumer. No titles shelves by the spine. This is a wonderful innovation IMO (made possible by culling the inventory to four-star and above books).

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

lovescats — Sat, 03 Jun 2017 21:41:12 GMT

AMAZON’S BRICK-AND-MORTAR BOOKSTORES ARE NOT BUILT FOR PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY READ

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/amazons-brick-and-mortar-bookstores-are-not-built-for-people-who-actually-read

Re: Amazon's New Book Store

LoriLori — Sun, 04 Jun 2017 16:41:00 GMT

@lovescats, oh, my!. A work in progress? Working out the kinks? So many kinks, yikes.