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Amazon begins to test omnichannel waters

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Amazon, the company synonymous with online retailing, made news earlier this month by opening its first brick-and-mortar outlet, a 7,500-square-foot bookstore in University Village, a high-end shopping center in Seattle.

Amazon, the company synonymous with online retailing, made news earlier this month by opening its first brick-and-mortar outlet, a 7,500-square-foot bookstore in University Village, a high-end shopping center in Seattle.

Operating under the Amazon Books banner, the store carries between 5,000 and 6,000 printed titles, along with the full line of the company’s Kindle e-readers and related devices. One noteworthy merchandising innovation is that many of the books are placed on shelves so that the cover, rather than the spine, is visible to ­shoppers.

In a letter to customers posted online by Jennifer Cast, vice president of Amazon Books, the brick-and-mortar store is characterized as an extension of Amazon.com, which two decades ago started as an online bookseller and has since extended its reach into almost every conceivable consumer products category. She says the new store is designed to integrate the strengths of digital and real-world book shopping, with the assortment at the University Village location shaped by such factors as sales on Amazon.com, pre-orders and customer ratings. Prices at Amazon Books are the same as on the website, and, as Cast notes, "it is a store without walls," since millions of additional titles are easily available from Amazon.com. All in all, the store represents a solid first step toward creating an omnichannel experience that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Some analysts have questioned the wisdom of Amazon’s finally taking the plunge and getting involved in brick-and-mortar retailing, which obviously entails significant costs that don’t apply to e-commerce. The people at Amazon have, however, realized that, despite the robust growth of online sales, the traditional retail experience isn’t going to disappear anytime soon. Many people enjoy going into a store, where they can experience products firsthand and encounter merchandise that they may not have known to look for online. The personal interaction with store employees, some of whom have specialized knowledge, is another factor that can’t be replicated online.

The emergence of Amazon, until now a pure-play Internet merchant, leaves no doubt that e-commerce has a secure place in retailing, as do, for the moment at least, brick-and-mortar stores. The future will belong to those companies that create a hybrid that bring consumers the best of both worlds.

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