I like shopping in book stores. There’s something about wandering the aisles and waiting for a book to jump out at you that I can’t get shopping online. Unfortunately, whenever I compare the price of a book Amazon has every in-person store beat, often pricing their offerings 30%-50% lower (or around $10/book in my experience) even when I go to a large chain like Barnes and Noble.

How is it that Amazon is able to afford to offer the books so much cheaper and also support all of the infrastructure involved in shipping it to my doorstep compared with in-person stores?

  • 970372@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I don’t know the full details, but part of it:

    • In the store you can walk between the books. This takes loads of room. In the Amazon warehouse, this can be veeery cramped.
    • The land value of the store is probably mich higher than the Amazon warehouse land.
    • They sell much more, so all costs can be shared across a million orders, instead of across just 10 books sold.