Back to the future with bookstores

I reckon an Amazon store that serves as an interface to their online store might be good. Don't sell books there, but rather you go in, and can browse through books, drink coffee etc just like a Borders store, and if you have a kindle, you can buy books on the spot, if you don't, you can order them shipped to your house. That way they only need a 1-2 copies of each book in the store, just as display stock. They could sell kindles there, and have computers/tablets for purchasing online (even perhaps let you buy books through your kindle app on iOS/android by scanning barcodes/qr codes). Staff could teach people how to use Amazon/kindles etc. Book signings/launches could also be held there.<p>That's basically how I've used Borders here in Australia before they went bust. I would go in, and enjoy the atmosphere of the physical book store, flick through books, and then take photos of them and go home and buy them online via Kindle or Book Depository for half the price. I don't mind if I don't get the book instantly (though I would anyway if it was out on kindle), I just enjoy browsing. It would be a good sales generator for Amazon with still a fairly low overhead.

I wonder if this model could work with Amazon affiliates program - ensure that the bookstore gets a cut from people ordering books on the Amazon terminal. Maybe Amazon would subsidize this kind of store, instead of the publishers, to capture the mall-goers that browse around Borders just because it's there and end up buying a random new release.<p>That would kind of remind me of an Apple store - they could have Kindles lying around for you to preview sections of new releases, a "genius bar" for recommendations, easy payments with your Amazon account, free coffee for Prime members etc.<p>I don't think Amazon would actually do it because setting up Brick and Mortar storefronts doesn't seem to gel with their business, but it would be kind of neat and I could see this type of specialty meat-space front end for web properties really taking off.

These sound great, and do you know the best thing about his idea? There probably already is one in your town. It's called a <i>library</i>.<p>Seriously, they provide almost everything on his list: socialising spaces, quiet reading areas, computers, free wifi, book ordering, cafes and bibliophile events. And interestingly, they are paid for by membership fees (if you squint, government-run libraries make everyone a member and pay a fee via general taxation). These government-run libraries would make it quite hard to run a similar thing as a business. That's probably okay, because a library is somewhere between a merit and a public good (a quasi-public good).

There's a wonderful used and rare bookstore around the corner from my house (and it doesn't hurt that we're both less than a mile from a large university). The store has been around for at least twenty years and given the size of the store, and selection, I don't see it going anywhere any time soon.<p>Well, that is, as long as the owners live.<p>It's not uncommon to see books from the 1800s line the shelves. It's a place where one could spend hours perusing the stacks for long lost gems.<p>And they also sell books via Amazon. I think they've figured out their business model.

Warm and fuzzy, but I have to ask how many people can honestly say they would pay a cover charge or monthly membership fee to be allowed to enter a bookstore. I suspect the number is quite low.

I have thought about something like this combined with a Xerox Docutech. I worked with one during college and was impressed that it could take pdf files off the network and do limited runs for class notes. It could even do some simple binding with heavy stock cardboard for the covers and some kind of adhesive for the spine.<p>I wouldn't want anything like a Kinkos but maybe the store could also do higher end binding of single books. I don't know how that is done now but I would probably pay for nice editions of particular books. Especially if I could customize the covers, stock etc.

My wife managed an independent bookshop for a few years (The Travel Bookshop) which had not only a prime London location and a nice niche, but a worldwide feature film to draw punters in from.<p>There's almost no money in this business, and some of the ideas in the article are frankly laughable (a "book gym"? LMAO) outside very small parts of the Valley perhaps in the boomiest of boom times.<p>I particularly liked the idea of a genius bar where they'll "fix your iPad". WTF? Sounds like one of the worst VC pitches you'll ever hear.

Barnes and Noble would get more business from me if they'd make their online side and the stores work better together.<p>For instance, they have the ability on the site to find if a book is available in your local stores. How about extending that so that I can have a view that only shows books that are in stock at my local stores?<p>Another one would be to allow exchanges through the store. Right now they do allow returns--that is, buy online and decide you want to return it, and you can drop the return off at your local store instead of going through the hassle of shipping. However, if you buy online, and they ship you the wrong item or a defective item, and so you want an exchange rather than a return, then you have to ship back to them and have them ship you the correct item.

I think the author tries hard to ignore the role of technology.<p>1. It's clear that most books will be ebooks , especially for people interested in book communities.<p>2. It's pretty easy for anybody with an interest to form an offline(or offline/online) community anywhere using digital tools. reddit meetups are a good example.grubwithus is another. And they facilitate better communities at a cheaper(sometimes free) price.<p>3. The capability and benefits of online communities is always improving. Google+ hangouts is the latest example. Maybe in the future they'll replace offline book communities at all ?

hes talking about a coffee shop with a book focus<p>starbucks makes good money on people who just want to sit and read. A good coffee shop niche would be adding in a library and encouraging people to discuss books and such

Really tough sale, I'm not sure what value-add a "book store" can provide over a coffee shop.<p>Here's one idea: the customer pays a monthly membership. Any books they buy at the book store are shipped to the store and shelved for the customer. The customer can come in at any time and read their books or take them home. This is basically a privatized library. Maybe it could help with some of the problems libraries have.<p>But that's a very small niche. I'm not sure what a book store can provide that a coffee shop + kindle combination cannot.

Nice article. Interestingly, there's been a bit of buzz about Amazon finding local mail-holders (or distribution partners, or whatever) for "not home" deliveries. I think I saw an article somewhere today about a partnership with 7-Eleven stores - obviously, extending this to local bookstores could make lots of sense for everyone concerned (Amazon, customers, and local businesses who drive sales to Amazon).<p>The kiosk idea is interesting but would want some kind of transparent proxy to insert affiliate IDs, perhaps?

I wonder about the future of shops in general. It is nice to be able to see some products in reality before you buy them, but even now it is typical to seek shopping advice in a shop, then order from the cheapest internet vendor.<p>Could it be viable to create "look only" shops that only facilitate online sales? Maybe a lot of producers would even be willing to hand out the display merchandise for free?

I work in a small bookstore/coffee-shop in a smallish commuter town and there's one massive thing the author is missing out on: if you order from Amazon you don't get the @40% margin that forms the bulk of your profits. Having said that, I don't know anything about the Amazon affiliate fees programme - I imagine it'd be a very small cut?

I can only imagine that if bookstores started charging admission, big publishers would want a piece of it.<p>One other model that the article doesn't mention is evolving bookstores into 'show rooms' for books and ebooks. In a way, they are already for many people who use Amazon.

I've often wondered why Amazon doesn't partner with coffee shops. Amazon delivers a small library of free books to coffee shops, and partners with publishers to provide free promotional copies of their books.<p>Win/win/win.

Darwinism at its finest, find your niche or die.