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Posted by Lale on 18/1/2002, 1:55:14
When I was young I had this peculiarity (just one of my many idiosyncracies) : I refused to buy something from a store unless that store sold (and hopefully specialized on) one thing only. For instance, I bought my LPs and 45s from a record store. They sold nothing but records. I bought my socks and stockings from a store that sold only socks and stockings. If a store sold socks and beauty products, then I wouldn't buy neither socks nor beauty products from them. This bizarre habit slowly changed with the change of the world. Supermarkets, department stores... Business men wanting to do business in every possible area whether or not they have the expertise, the know-how for it; all of this bigger and better, one-stop shopping, and basically *greed* changed the way of trade.
Bookstores sell books. Now, almost all of them also sell magazines and greeting cards and calenders too. But it's ok. They are still bookstores. They haven't gone totally unrecognizable. Some of them installed coffee shops in one corner and I welcomed that change.
Then came Amazon. I don't remember the first days of Amazon very well, because a few years ago I was not doing any shopping over the internet and I was not interested. But I believe it started off as a book store. Maybe music was there right at the beginning too, I don't know, I seem to think it was just books at first. In any case music came along, that's fine too, sort of. I mean I like them both, and an argument can be made that they are related. So, let's say that selling books and CDs are ok.
So, this amazon place, a giant bookstore, right on my screen, started to feel like a book club. You can write reviews, read reviews... A nice place only for book lovers. Then everything changed. Amazon is now telling me that they have a facial replenishing kit for me??? They are selling toys, software, cars ...
Do you like it? What's going on?
Does anyone you know go to amazon to buy a car?
Couldn't amazon keep its bookstore seperate from its everything else store?
When I cannot find an English book in one of Paris' four major English bookstores (WHSMITH, Calignani, Brettons, Shakepeare and Co.) then I order it from amazon.co.uk. If UK doesn't have it then I order it from amazon.com. So, I am stil a customer but it doesn't feel like a bookstore anymore with all the ads popping up and telling me all the gifts for father's day or whatever.
Lale (during her whining time, 2 am Paris)
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Posted by Chris on 20/1/2002, 3:18:05, in reply to "Amazon"
I agree Lale. When I discovered Amazon in late 1998, it sold books, movies, and music - and that seemed fine. It seemed like a community of book/personal media lovers. Now, the site is so dauntingly full of electronics, auctions, cars, etc, that it has lost its character as a quirky little website that was great for finding unusual books; it's become a departments store, and in the process, lost its charm.
I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with Amazon's expansion into non-book items, but it has changed the site, at least for me, from interesting to bland.
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Posted by Dave on 20/1/2002, 7:46:15, in reply to "Re: Amazon"
About the Amazon phenomena, yes, I totally agree with the both of you. The ever-expanding list of products is getting to be as long as... well, the Amazon! I spend a lot of time at the site, writing and reading reviews, ordering books... and I must say, I've been impressed with the speed of their book delivery. And the site is useful for a host of other practical reasons. For instance, just a few days ago I had to make a decision about reserving advance theatre tickets for this summer's Stratford Festival. Tossed between a few choices, I just went to Amazon and read some reviews. The 64 reviews helped me settle on seeing The Scarlet Pimpernel in August.
I currently have 95 reviews posted at Amazon and they are ALL reviews on BOOKS! (fancy that)! But I often read a good review and then I think... "Hey, this guy/gal sounds pretty sharp" so I click on their "see more about me" section to see what other reviews they've written... and (seriously) more often than not, the other reviews are on things like C.D.'s, cameras, toys, computer software, and Scarlet Pimple Remover... but NOT BOOKS!
In a way... it's sad, because you know... I am a total book purist! In my mind's Utopia things are exactly the opposite of what's going on at Amazon y'know? In Daveworld you go to the local camera store, and are amazed to find that they have a great Dostoyevsky section! Or, while Christmas shopping, you find that today is free "Something-By-Dickens" Day with every Tickle-Me-Elmo sold! I am still the only person I know who once CALLED the Encyclopedia Brittannica place and TOLD THEM TO SEND ME A SALESMAN! When the astonished guy got to my to place, I told him to skip the spiel and just sign me up for the black Heirloom edition with the nice cushy covers with the Edinburgh thistle on them. The poor guy. I didn't know that false teeth could lodge that firmly in the back of the throat. And I paid in full, to further the astonishment factor! By the way... try to find a set of Brittannica's now! It's not easy. There are no more salesmen. You can get the whole thing on C.D. for a miniscule fraction of the old price.
But it's just the way of the times. $MONEY$ To paraphrase what Lale was saying, many of the large mega-bookstores have their "candles and throw-cushions" sections now. And the question that keeps the commercial rent-payers awake at night isn't "How can we improve our Literature section tomorrow?"... it's more like, "How can we get rid of that poetry rack and install an aromatherapy bar in its place?" Hey, maybe we can even install... a therapist! My fellow book-buyer, that scent that is always one step ahead of you in today's mega-bookstore?.... that ain't paper! That's candles and coffee!
How can we get people to buy something else while we're getting them to think about buying books? By the way... I think that book buyers/browsers are already more in the mood for peripheral shopping, and marketers know this. Book browsers are already in an "I'm open to something interesting" frame of mind. This is a marketer's drool-filled dream. But I don't think any such similar haze attends our other earthly transactions. When you're paying your automotive repair bill, the mechanic doesn't ask you "Would you like a side of beef with that?" Are you distracted by a sale on cat food as you leave your dentist's office?
But books. Ah... someone has figured out that those who want to buy books are in the mood to buy other things too. There are big rents and employee salaries to be paid regularly. Money and more money MUST come in. I'm sure it is no different and maybe in some ways MORE difficult for cyber-companies to compete in such a fierce market. And so, there's lots of diversification going on. Am I against this trend? Apparently not! My credit card bills seem to show that I am rather an addicted supporter of it. I do, however, feel that the loss of so many privately owned bookstores (new AND used) is a deplorable thing. I'm reminded of this loss of "expertise" every time I'm in a mega-store and I observe a customer asking the teen-age saleshuman if they have "To The Lighthouse" in stock... and I watch this poor well-intentioned idiot stroll right on past the "W" section in fiction so they can get to the blessed computer terminal on the far side of the store. As they search for it on the screen, the customer is already wondering if this throw-cushion (conveniently placed beside the computer) is a good match for their couch....
Am I complaining? No. I love Amazon. "Lord bless them" (and I mean that sincerely). Whatever keeps the books rolling onto my shelves. I'm all for it. But I do hope that Amazon doesn't turn into... Amway! Mega-stores in a mega-world. It's a necessary evil... similar in scale to acknowledging that Tom Clancy somehow manages to outsell Tolstoy. And that candles and picture-frames seem to outsell them both!
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Posted by Michael Sympson on 22/1/2002, 16:22:25, in reply to "Amazon"
There is even a commercial mystery to it. Like most e-companies, Amazon had been in the red for years, and in a monumental way, we talk billions. Only rather recently the book shop had climbed into the black figures. It is still the only department of Amazon that turns a profit. Now they diversified and sit deep in the red again. Go figure.
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