Amazon's New York book store generates little enthusiasm

Online retailer Amazon’s first book store in New York did not only draw in positive feedback. It looks too much like a traditional book store.

No prices

Amazon’s seventh physical book store, 307 sqm, is in Manhattan’s Time Warner Centre and feels like a traditional book store, aside from a small number of innovations. Several analysts feel this is exactly why the store will not appeal to many customers: it simply does not differentiate enough, even though it has innovations customers will not find anywhere else.

There is no cash in the store: customers scan with their smartphone and pay for their books at self-service cash registers. Amazon Prime members will always pay what the book would have cost online, but regular customers pay the in-store price. Unfortunately for them, there is not a single price tag to be found in the store, which makes things slightly more cumbersome.

Data

For its recommended titles, Amazon uses data from its online shop. It has a product range with books that Kindle users have read within three days and customers will not find a single book in the store rated below 4 (out of 5) stars on Amazon.

Analysts wonder what this store actually adds to a market with one book store closure after another for the express reason that customers have turned to online sales channels, like Amazon. The store’s product range is also rather limited and everything feels rather asphyxiating because of the limited store size. One visitor did not call it a fully-fledged book store, but rather labeled it as a “pick-up-and-go” store.