New Amazon Bookstore Coming to Manhattan in Spring

The online retailing giant is now moving offline

Amazon long ago conquered the online bookselling world, but now it is tackling the offline world too. This year, Amazon will be opening a bookstore in the Time Warner Center in Columbus Circle in Manhattan. The shop will be the fourth of its kind as the online retailer is already running successful locations in Seattle, Portland, and San Diego. Amazon also has also started bookstore projects in Chicago and Dedham, Massachusetts, to be completed in the coming months.

The New York Times commented that the already existing Amazon bookstores are pretty standard, but “the company stocks far fewer titles than typical bookstores, using online data to determine which ones to carry.” So, it’s highly unlikely that this emerging chain will be able to compete with the charm and personality of New York favorites like McNally Jackson or The Strand. What they do have on their side is cutting edge technology, which is permeating their other ventures, too. Last month, Business Insider reported on Amazon’s futuristic grocery stores, named Amazon Go because an app automatically tracks and charges your purchases, letting you leave without having to wait in line or interact with a cashier.

The irony of Amazon building physical stores is not lost on publications like The Verge, which notes how “Amazon will expand its book-selling empire with the very thing that it once helped to destroy: bookstores.” I guess we’ll see come spring whether or not their reinvention of the wheel gets traction in NYC.