The New York City publishing community welcoming Amazon to their Manhattan brick and mortar location with open arms pic.twitter.com/wejbnk3HMI
— Rob Spillman (@robspillman) October 10, 2014
by Anna Borgholthaus
Amazon's announcement to open a storefront in the heart of New York City has got the publishing community feeling a little protective about their home turf. From waging a war against Hatchette and offering books at extremely discounted prices, the tension between Amazon and the publishing community has been mounting for some time now. This most recent announcement is getting close to the final straw – especially if the store decides to feature books as one of the products available in the store.
Amazon is following in the footsteps of many online retailers who are realizing the value of a physical location. They “are seeing there is something to be gained by having an experience for consumers that is hands-on, that is experiential in nature instead of click-and-buy,” said Ken Perkins of Retail Metrics (source: SFGate).
Though the New York store, to be conveniently positioned on 34th Street across from the Empire State Building, has been deemed an “experiment” - should it succeed, it may be the predecessor to other storefronts opened across the country (source: WSJ). This poses a problem as the convenience of same-day purchase and perusal within a physical store would be Amazon's final frontier – and would pose insurmountable competition to the book stores that are holding on by a thread as it is.
One anonymous member of the publishing company voiced their opinion, vehemently, as follows: “It’s incredibly ironic that Amazon, the company that is trying to edge brick-and-mortar bookstores out of the market, would now turn around and open their own store. I think it’s pretty insane because they’re — seemingly haphazardly — trying to get involved in literally every corner of the market… I’m not a legal person, but it seems like they’re trying to have a monopoly on the marketplace" (source: BetaBeat).
It is still undetermined whether the store will carry books, according to the Wall Street Journal, as the store is intended to be more of a “mini warehouse” where customers can pick up orders they've made online, and make returns and exchanges. Given their history, however, this news does not put publishers at ease – as the frustrated person quoted above puts it, they would just “wonder what's next."
Amazon's announcement to open a storefront in the heart of New York City has got the publishing community feeling a little protective about their home turf. From waging a war against Hatchette and offering books at extremely discounted prices, the tension between Amazon and the publishing community has been mounting for some time now. This most recent announcement is getting close to the final straw – especially if the store decides to feature books as one of the products available in the store.
Amazon is following in the footsteps of many online retailers who are realizing the value of a physical location. They “are seeing there is something to be gained by having an experience for consumers that is hands-on, that is experiential in nature instead of click-and-buy,” said Ken Perkins of Retail Metrics (source: SFGate).
Though the New York store, to be conveniently positioned on 34th Street across from the Empire State Building, has been deemed an “experiment” - should it succeed, it may be the predecessor to other storefronts opened across the country (source: WSJ). This poses a problem as the convenience of same-day purchase and perusal within a physical store would be Amazon's final frontier – and would pose insurmountable competition to the book stores that are holding on by a thread as it is.
One anonymous member of the publishing company voiced their opinion, vehemently, as follows: “It’s incredibly ironic that Amazon, the company that is trying to edge brick-and-mortar bookstores out of the market, would now turn around and open their own store. I think it’s pretty insane because they’re — seemingly haphazardly — trying to get involved in literally every corner of the market… I’m not a legal person, but it seems like they’re trying to have a monopoly on the marketplace" (source: BetaBeat).
It is still undetermined whether the store will carry books, according to the Wall Street Journal, as the store is intended to be more of a “mini warehouse” where customers can pick up orders they've made online, and make returns and exchanges. Given their history, however, this news does not put publishers at ease – as the frustrated person quoted above puts it, they would just “wonder what's next."