The world’s largest bookseller, Amazon is embracing the brick-and-mortar bookstore retail format it’s been killing for 20 years.  Amazon’s physical bookstore fronts fits with the company’s increasing reliance on storefronts including AmazonBooks, Amazon Go, and AmazonFresh Pickup to build sales and meet customers where they are.  AmazonBooks now has more than ten physical stores.  Another reason for Amazon’s new strategy is that physical bookstores are experiencing something of a comeback. From 2010 to 2017, the number of independent bookstores increased by nearly 30 percent.  These stores are capitalizing on a loyal customer base that appreciates the value of a real bookstore that hosts readings and events, offers conversation and discussion, and enables browsing and discovery.  With physical bookstores, Amazon intends to spur its Prime membership program that provides shoppers the same price on books that are listed on Amazon.com. Non-Prime members have to pay the full list price on books. Similarly, AmazonFresh Pickup also caters to the company’s membership hierarchy — the service is available only to Prime members, and AmazonFresh members get the additional benefit of being able to pick up orders within 15 minutes.  Finally, Amazon’s new physical stores showcase, display, and sell its many devices, including the Kindle, e-book readers, Fire tablets, Fire TV devices, and the Echo with voice-activation assistance from Alexa. (p. 13a)

Source:  Based on Jeremy Bowman, “3 Reasons Amazon is Opening a Brick-and-Mortar Bookstore Chain,” https://www.aol.com/article/finance/2017/06/07/3-reasons-amazon-is-opening-a-brick-and-mortar-bookstore-chain/22130842/