SEATTLE — On November 3, online retail giant Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar store, Amazon Books.
On November 3, online retail giant Amazon opened its first brick-and-mortar store, Amazon Books.
The new store, which measures 7,400 square feet and is located north of downtown Seattle in University Village, represents a "physical extension of Amazon.com," according to Amazon Books vice president Jennifer Cast, who offered some details about the store in a letter to Amazon customers.
"We’ve applied 20 years of online bookselling experience to build a store that integrates the benefits of offline and online book shopping," Cast states in the letter. "The books in our store are selected based on Amazon.com customer ratings, pre-orders, sales, popularity on Goodreads, and our curators’ assessments."
Along with selling top-rated books available on Amazon.com — which will be priced the same in the store as online — Amazon Books, according to Cast, will offer the Amazon Kindle, Echo, Fire TV and Fire Tablet, and customers will be able to take advantage of Amazon experts who will be in the store to answer questions and to show and explain how the various products work. Cast describes Amazon books as "a store without walls."
And to further help customers find "great books," Cast says the books in the store will face-out with review cards bearing customer ratings and reviews. Except for holidays, Amazon Books will be open seven days a week.
