On Tuesday, online retail giant Amazon opened its first bookstore as an extension of its website two decades on. This move will combine online pricing with traditional shopping.
The store, which is based in Seattle, will offer its customers around 6,000 titles scrapped from Amazon.com sales, pre-orders and customer ratings. The company has no plans to open any more stores however.
Jennifer Cast, Amazon Books vice president, said: "We hope this is not our only one. But we'll see."
Some consumers have been a little confused with the physical bookstore, as they see the online retailer being the reason why so many other booksellers have gone out of business.
John Mutler, editor-in-chief of the book trade newsletter Shelf Awareness, said: "They're the dominant retailer in the country and they kind of got there by playing real hard ball." He added: "They are considered the Darth Vader of the business because they play really brutally."
Adding his comment, Seattle’s independent Elliott Bay Book Co owner, Peter Aaron, said: "I can't imagine that there would be any profit, especially if their pricing is identical to the prices online, given rent and staffing."
