For Amazon, it’s groceries over books when it comes to brick-and-mortar stores
Amazon is to end a seven-year experiment and close all 68 of its brick-and-mortar Amazon Books, Amazon Pop-up and Amazon 4-stars, and instead focus on Amazon Go, Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods Market supermarkets, along with a projected department store.
The move will barely impact Amazon’s earnings: estimates suggest these stores made up barely 3% of the company’s $137 billion turnover last quarter; but it does prompt reflection on the decisions of a company that, after having directly or indirectly caused the closure of many, many stores of all kinds around the world, has now ended its experiment in some categories.
When Amazon announced the opening of Amazon Books in 2015, more than one commentator questioned the logic, asking whether the company had identified those categories of store that the public still enjoyed the experience of going into and browsing. The Amazon Books stores were relatively small, but provided recommendations and evaluations, stock selection, or cross-promotions with the online channel. Now Amazon has decided that the segment of users who still want to buy books in a real store can be ignored, that it will continue to decline, and instead is concentrating on other categories where the habit of online shopping has still not been fully established.
