Amazon’s First DC-Area Bookstore Opens
I am still under an embargo and won’t even be allowed in to see the new store until tomorrow, but the Washington Post has published a guided tour of the new Amazon Books location in DC.
The store opens officially tomorrow, but the WaPo visited it last week.
Amazon’s first Washington-area bookstore is set to open Tuesday with two floors of books, electronics, toys and even juicers — but not a single price tag.
The online behemoth, which has helped drive a number of traditional bookstores out of business, is hoping its loyal online following will translate into in-store customers on Georgetown’s M Street NW, in the same building that Barnes & Noble once inhabited before shutting in 2011.
At 10,000 square feet, the store is among the largest of Amazon’s 15 bookstores. It includes 5,600 book titles — all of which are displayed with their covers facing out — as well as dozens of tablets and smart-home devices on display for customers to test. (Jeffrey P. Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon, owns The Washington Post.)
The coverage is rather ordinary; if you’ve read about the opening of the previous 14 bookstores, then you can probably guess what it says.
Amazon sells books, its hardware, and other stuff. There’s a coffee shop (it’s run by a Whole Foods subsidiary).
It is, in short, a bookstore.
I plan to visit the store tomorrow morning. I’ll see if I can find something new to say.
image via The Georgetowner
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