The US company plans to open as many as 400 bookstores, Sandeep Mathrani, chief executive of mall operator General Growth Properties Inc., said, wsj.com reports. The November 2015 Seattle opened bookstore sells books and Amazon’s Kindle and Fire devices.
Amazon says it stocks the location using data it collects from its website. The store stocks about 5,000 titles at any one time, compared with millions on its website platform. The Seattle bookstore carries the same prices as Amazon’s online store. It showcases customers’ online book reviews for some titles and, like many independent stores, has curated sections featuring selections from employees, including Chief Executive Jeff Bezos.
In addition to the Seattle bookstore, Amazon footwear division Zappos and Quidsi, parent of Diapers.com, have experimented with US retail outlets. Mr. Mathrani noted that other online retailers, like fashion site Bonobos and eyeglasses seller Warby Parker, are opening physical stores. Online makeup subscription service Birchbox “is cutting their overhead to open bricks-and-mortar stores,” he said.
Such stores also can serve as mini warehouses for home delivery in urban centers, a concept Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Target Corp. and others have explored. Warby Parker has said its physical stores are profitable in their own right.
Amazon’s Seattle bookstore has no apparent delivery component, though people familiar with its operations have said the retailer is using it to experiment with stocking shelves quickly using nearby warehouses and doing other types of data collection.
Mr. Mathrani suggested another possible motivation for Amazon to open a chain of physical stores: returns. The CEO of the Chicago-based company said 38% of online purchases for what are known as soft goods, such as clothing and paper products, are returned to brick-and-mortar locations, the source cites.
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