It may sound like Amazon is going to start selling books at physical stores, but in reality, the company is actually testing out new ways to sell their tablets. Probably competing with Apple's stores, Reuters is reporting that the online behemoth is planning "to showcase and sell its growing line of gadgets, including the Kindle Fire tablet." So far there has been no reports on whether or not they are thinking of expanding to sell books at the store. There was speculation in Daily Finance that "it's quite possible that an Amazon Store could eventually carry a wide range of products." I do believe selling books in an Amazon store would fill the great vacuum in the physical book store market that Amazon helped create in the first place.Do you think this is a good move on Amazon's part? Will customers go to a physical store to try out the new Kindle, or will they trust online reviews and buy it like online as usual?
I think the term you want to use is "brick and mortar", not "brick and motor". :)
ReplyDeleteI would go to a physical Amazon store, because sometimes I get irritated that certain things can only be bought online. I suppose I'm old-fashioned, but it seems easier to me to go to the store and buy something than to do it online.
Corrected. I could use the excuse that I did this on little sleep, but I should've done it earlier in the first place. :P
DeleteI think Amazon has a good marketing team. I'm surprised they didn't expand to stores sooner, but they may have just been waiting for the inevitable crash of the rest of the book industry before taking over.
DeleteIt is particularly a good idea to use their store for selling digital items because there are a lot of people who are quicker to buy if they can use it themselves rather than just basing their decision on ratings (which we all know is biased toward people who hate it/love it to one extreme or another) especially since no one likes the hassle of shipping items back if we don't like it.
I think it would also be beneficial to Amazon to also start selling books. Lots of people like to find new books by browsing physical books in a store rather than online (there is something about picking up and handling it rather than clicking on a mouse to browse a selection that is more appealing). This would also serve as a double function--they have a good chance of drawing people who go to the store for books to end up looking at/buying technology. Or, for people who go to the store looking at different technology offered might stop to browse some books and walk out with books they didn't plan on buying in the first place.
Amazon is such a giant-ass company I feel like they can afford to take some risks.