Lee Child on Amazon’s real-life bookshops – and why we should be worried

The world’s biggest online retailer wants to invade the high street. What’s in it for them?In December, Amazon US released its 2015 in-house all-format all-category bestseller list, and then the newspaper USA Today came out with its own industry-wide all-sources version. What was the difference? Two words: The Martian (good movie, but the book was better). It was a huge seller, number 4 on USA Today’s list, but nowhere on Amazon’s. There were other titles in the same anomalous situation. Why?Because, even now, for most books and most people most of the time, the biggest spur to purchase is actually seeing an actual book in a physical place. Because for most people most of the time, reading is a take-it-or-yawn-leave-it activity. Books are not quite distress purchases, but neither are they exciting enough for enthusiastic online hunting. (Again, for most people most of the time, which I’ll stop repeating now, but only if the e-fanboys agree to discuss the real world, not their pretend version. Deal?) Related: Seattle bookstores face new threat from Amazon: a brick-and-mortar location Related: Amazon begins a new chapter with opening of first physical bookstore Continue reading... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2016-02-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #high street #usa today

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