Can you believe Amazon has a bookstore? ?I’m talking about a real life Amazon physical bookstore. My question is: Is it even worth visiting?
An independent publisher named Dustin Kurtz wondered the same thing. He wrote an article in the New Republic about his Amazon bookstore experience. He visited Amazon Books in Seattle, Washington’s University Village shopping complex. The first thing that struck him is the simple name: Amazon Books. ?He noticed employees carrying walky-talkies doing their best to prevent an overcrowded mob scene. He talked about an article promoting this new bookstore that came out the day before. This article that shamelessly promoted the online bookstore as well as this physical one. He calls the store setup odd, with book stacks being way too close to each other. Though there were discounts throughout the store, these books don’t come cheap. The sense I get from this article is that you can get most of the same books online for the same price, if not better. Some classics, like George Orwell’s 1984, weren’t even offered. However, Kurtz was impressed with how employees were treated. Their pay was $18 an hour, and they got benefits. But keep in mind Seattle is one of the few cities where minimum wage is $15 an hour.
At least they got that part right. This bookstore offers nothing new or unique. Even the name Amazon Books is bland. Why were there security concerns? There was no special guest author or celebrity scheduled that day. Just because an Amazon bookstore was opening, the masses run to the door. What does that say about our consumer culture today? They could have offered better pricing on merchandise, something that would make it worth the trip to University Village. I find it funny they didn’t offer books like 1984, books that make you think about the coming world. Are we heading towards on Orwellian world today, and they don’t want us to know about it? They did have a Starbucks though. Then again, so does almost every Barnes and Noble in the USA. If Amazon Books opened up in your town, would you go? And what’s wrong with the good old library? What’s wrong with your local independent bookstore?