亞馬遜逆流開實體書店

所屬教程:金融時報原文閱讀

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2020年07月06日

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亞馬遜逆流開實體書店

網(wǎng)絡(luò)書店鼻祖及巨頭亞馬遜逆潮流而動，在網(wǎng)上賣了二十年的書后，其實體書店也向客戶敞開了大門。亞馬遜副總裁詹妮弗·卡斯特在聲明中說到“開創(chuàng)了實體書店的，是我們手中的網(wǎng)絡(luò)數(shù)據(jù)?！?

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

bibliophiles 藏書家

bricks-and-mortar 實體店

trove 寶庫

curate 精心打造

zilch 一無所有

閱讀即將開始，建議您計算一下閱讀整篇文章所用時間，并對照我們在文章最后給出的參考值來估算您的閱讀速度。

Amazon opens its first bricks-and-mortar bookstore（523words）

By Henry Mance in London and Leslie Hook in San Francisco

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If you love small bookshops, and hate Amazon, you may want to think again.

The world’s largest online retailer, often blamed for killing high-street bookshops, opened its first ever bricks-and-mortar outlet for bibliophiles on Tuesday.

Located in the company’s home city of Seattle, Amazon Books stocks a relatively small number of titles —— resembling in some ways the thousands of bookstores in the US and elsewhere that have closed in recent years.

But in a departure from traditional stores, Amazon will change pricing on its books frequently to match prices online. As a result, books will not have price tags and customers must instead check prices at stands in the store or with an Amazon app.

Amazon Books will draw on the company’s treasure trove of online sales data and customer reviews to curate the most popular titles. Among the staff picks are Jeff Bezos’s recommendations, including The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman and his wife’s book, Trap.

Amazon already commands a third of print book sales and two-thirds of ebook sales in the US, according to Cowen research from November 2014, but growth in ebooks has slowed dramatically, particularly after publishers raised prices for ebooks after a recent pricing dispute. A Pew Research Center study last month found that 27 per cent of Americans had read an ebook in the past 12 months, slightly down on last year.

Traditional bookstores have struggled to match Amazon’s range, low prices and cheap delivery. But they have retained two powerful advantages —— immediacy and browsing.

“I love browsing around independent bookstores,” Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, told the Guardian in 2001. “But even there, the store doesn’t instantly customise itself to suit your interests.”

“We hope this is not our only [store]. But we’ll see,” Jennifer Cast, the vice-president of Amazon Books, told the Seattle Times this week, without detailing the strategy behind the store, which is located in a shopping centre.

“The amount of investment here is zilch in their context,” said Mike Shatzkin, a publishing consultant about the company’s new book venture. “I think what it’s really about is learning.” Retailers of all types are looking to understand how shoppers’ behaviour online is influenced by their high-street habits.

Amazon says the store will not be a venue to promote books produced through Amazon Publishing, which other book chains often refuse to stock. However the shop will allow users to try Amazon devices such as the Kindle, the Fire tablet, and the Fire TV.

The shift to physical retail stores may have some downside for the internet retailer. “Part of Amazon’s magic is that they are often paid for the books [by consumers] before they have to pay [suppliers]. With retail stores, it’s the opposite,” said Mr Shatzkin.

He added that Amazon’s strong growth in online retail and cloud computing would console any investors worried about the new interest in low-growth physical retail business. “If Amazon had done this 10 years ago, it would have destroyed their share price,” Mr Shatzkin joked.

James Daunt of Waterstones, the UK bookseller, told the BBC he hoped Amazon’s push into physical retailing “falls flat on its face”.

請根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測題目：

1. Where is Amazon’s home city?

a. New York

b. Philadelphia

c. Seattle

d. Atlanta

2. Where is the price tag in Amazon’s bookstore?

a. on the cover of the book

b. nonexistent

c. on the shelf

d. flat price