It caused quite a stir when a shopping-mall executive
speculated that Amazon was planning to open as many as 400 physical bookstores
around the nation. Amazon calls its plans more modest, which means Amazon
Bookstores are still going to be popping up.
Rich Bellis, associate editor at Fast Company, predicted that the Amazon stores will be hybrids combining showroom, warehouse, pickup
lockers, and books. He based that on the bookstore the online retailer already opened
in Seattle and the model it has opened on some college campuses, which have simply
been staffed order-and-pickup locations.
Bellis also said Amazon watched Barnes & Noble have
trouble incorporating the Nook device into its stores and has learned from that
lesson.
“It’s
a physical bookseller with a failed digital business,” Bellis wrote. “Amazon
has never been in that position and knows better than to put itself there.
Instead, it may see physical locations as (among other things) more akin to
Apple Stores, where it can showcase the hardware it sells online, with books
being the sorts of things you might grab on your way out, like a new iPhone
case.”
