Amazon Set to Open Non-Virtual Bookstores

After spending the last decade laying waste to the bookstores of the world, it now seems vaguely possible that Amazon is about to build a few of its own. That's right: physical bookstores, with actual books on actual shelves. And actual customers, one assumes. Amazon doesn't do anything without a plan, and without a preternatural understanding of their customers, so their business model must be pretty robust. As this blog post points out, the massive number of print on demand titles that Amazon hosts gives it the ability to tailor store offerings in a granular way without having to maintain huge warehouses of stock. And no-one does logistics and fulfillment as well as Amazon. Lovers of books may find it reassuring that Amazon evidently subscribes to the view that print books will be around for the foreseeable future.