Look Inside: fastFT visits Amazon’s first NYC bookstore

On a rainy Thursday, Amazon — the e-commerce giant that began as an online bookstore in the 1990s — opened its first brick-and-mortar store in New York, in the same mall where book chain Borders closed its store in 2011 after declaring bankruptcy.

New Yorkers queued up to check out the cashless book store located on the third floor at Time Warner Center. Amazon was staggering entries to prevent the store from becoming overcrowded.

The store occupies about 4,000 square feet and sells books, Amazon devices, accessories, Prime memberships and other products. It does not accept cash. Every item features a customer review, rating and the number of reviews it has received.

All the books are face-out rather than spine-out, in order to provide more information and lure readers with striking covers. That restricts Amazon’s shelf stock to just 3,000 titles. Additionally, every book is an Amazon.com bestseller or has a rating of at least four stars (out of a maximum of five).

Moreover, prices aren’t displayed, since Prime members receive a discount. To look up the price of a book or other item, users can either use their Amazon Prime app or one of the in-store price-check scanners, which shows the Prime price and the listed price.

Amazon’s Prime membership, which costs $99 a year or $10.99 for a monthly subscription, offers users free two-day shipping, discounts on certain Amazon items and a broad range of music, movies and TV streaming options.

Amazon’s data-driven approach can be seen throughout the store. Books are selected based on Amazon.com customer ratings, pre-orders, sales and their popularity on Goodreads, the reader review site that the Jeff Bezos-founded company purchased in 2013.

Jordan Wannemacher, a book designer at Columbia University Press, (pictured below with a book she was considering purchasing) said she often goes to book stores to “look for inspiration” and that it is “awesome as a book designer to see the cover, and not the spine out”.

However, Ms Wannemacher noted that avid readers would likely encounter pitfalls when browsing through Amazon’s data-driven offerings. “One of the issues is that a lot of these are top recommendations, so I’ve read most of them,” she said. The 27-year old — who typically buys two to three books a month and usually purchases used books on Amazon — said she would stop by the store again as it is close to her workplace.

Mike Bayer (not pictured), who said he worked in real estate before his retirement, said he showed up because he was curious, like many others. He noted that the store seemed “sterile” and only offered “popular stuff”. Nevertheless, he was “very impressed with Amazon” and amazed at the number of people it had drawn to the store.

However, Mr Bayer described himself as a “Kindle reader” — referring to the e-book device — and said he may stop by if he was going to Whole Foods, the upscale grocer located at the Time Warner Center.

Amazon, the fourth-largest publicly listed US company, also tried to give the bookstore a local flavour. It highlighted books about New York and those written by local authors, in addition to a section of books being read by New Yorkers.

Unlike US book chain Barnes & Noble, the Amazon store didn’t have a cafe or a seating area — with the exception of two couches located in front of its “if you like, you’ll love” section, which mirrors its online strategy of recommending books.

Everyone the FT spoke with was already a Prime subscriber. A handful of shoppers, however — mostly tourists — inquired about Prime memberships. Indeed, this could prove a way for Amazon to pique customers’ interest in a Prime membership by offering in-store discounts. Amazon itself, however, noted on some items that third parties were selling books for lower than both the Prime and list pricing. Moreover, it could be popular with book clubs as it offers curated big reads.

The Manhattan store is the seventh physical store the company has opened, with another slated to launch at 34th street later this year. The Seattle-based company hopes to have 13 brick-and-mortar locations by the end of this year.

Photos: Mamta Badkar/FT