20 years ago Jeff Bezos started to make rules of e-commerce, discovering new strategies of selling online. Today, when the future of brick and mortar stores seems insecure, Amazon opens its first physical bookshop in Seattle. Why? Enquiring minds want to know.
Create Amazing Shopping Experience. Download Free Ebook
Death sentence for physical stores?
E-commerce will kill brick and mortar stores. Users prefer buying online, because it’s more convenient and easier, and allows for research before purchase. Although many predict the brick and mortar apocalypse, it’s hard to overlook the growing market of tools addressing online-offline gap to make physical stores more interactive, connected and social. Amazon opening the physical store is another symptom of upcoming revolution in how we sell. Physical stores aren’t dead; they’re evolving.
The first physical Amazon’s store
At November 3th, Amazon Books was opened. The bookstore is located in Seattle and offers 6,000 books at the same prize as online.
The store is to bridge an online-offline gap. Books are carefully curated, always facing out, each accompanied by a review from Amazon’s e-store and user’s rating. The bookstore is run according to Big Data analysis (books’ rating, sales, viewability, etc.)
Ebooks defeated
The book market experts discuss the other problem. Bezos created an e-book empire. Is he retreating now? Does his physical store with physical books (although you can buy a Kindle there, too) means that ebooks were just a fad? In the first quarter of 2015, ebook sales dropped by 7.5% when compared to last year (LA Times).
Richard Mollet from Publishers Association interprets Bezos’ move as recognizing the power of traditional book over electronic files (The Guardian). Amazon, accused of ruining small local bookstores and hurting the book market, seems to tergiversate and engage in the project that embodies everything it used to fight against.
How Amazon Books Can Change E-commerce?
Amazon Books will for sure present new opportunities for e-commerce and inspire many retailers. Why?
• Amazon Books is an offline store based on 20 years of e-commerce experience,
• It will show how to address online-offline gap and ROPO
• Maybe the physical store will become a marketing channel, not a sales one. Its role will be to drive traffic to e-store and engage customers who haven’t considered buying books online before. Don Reisinger z Fortune says that physical store will just reinforce brand’s core online sales
• The bookstore might also serve as pick-up point for ordered books,
• Sales in physical store might turn out to be so impressive that the Seattle giant will invest more in that channel
• The policy of offering the same prices online and offline will become more common
• For sure, Amazon will surprise us with the innovative online – offline solutions, maybe a mobile app or beacons.
Bezos is known for his love for testing new solutions and engaging even in hopeless projects, like Alexandria, which was supposed to gather all the books ever produced. Will his brick and mortar bookstore share its fate or will it move commerce to the new level?
Follow
