Has anyone ever realized that Amazon completely ripped off Disney’s “The Jungle Book”?
The Amazon Jungle encompasses the largest and most diverse tropical rainforest in the world. Conveniently, Amazon, the business, is the largest bookmonger in the entire world. And here I rest my case: Jungle Book = Amazon.
Amazon Books opened in Seattle on Tuesday. Its first brick-and-mortar store doesn’t come as a huge surprise to me. It was bound to happen — throughout the past two decades I’ve seen all my favorite bookstores become eradicated from a brigade of digital eBooks. Now that all these little stores are boarded up, the bookstore has become a niche, antiquated and hipster outlet.
So obviously the ultimate monopolizer of cheap books has to plow through its Internet-only presence by creating a physical store. It’s the ultimate I-told-you-so to every single bankrupt bookstore out there. It’s an ode to failure, if you will.
The bottom line is that Amazon has nothing to lose. The name alone will propel the store to great heights, not the actual books it’s selling.
When I was little, my grandma took me to the mall sometimes on Saturdays. While she got her weekly perm, I was given $10 to go to the bookstore. It was my favorite thing to do besides going to the candy store.
Want to know what my ultra hip and modern grandma gives all of her grandchildren for Christmas now? An Amazon gift card. She’s not hypocritical, she’s just adapting to the times.
I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a great gift. I’ve bought a pair of Doc Martens, a Halloween costume and dozens of books on my Kindle. Great stuff, yes, but it’s always anti-climactic when I order things online. I read all the reviews, see what it’s rated and choose based on what other people think.
I used to walk into bookstores, completely blind to human opinion and chose obscure, albeit amazing books. We all have different tastes. Our purchases are bound to be different, yet they’re not.
Call me old fashioned, but I will always appreciate a paperback book. Nothing quite compares to dog-earring my pages, not even E-readers with holograms that make you nachos. If that ever becomes a thing, I patented it.
I hate to admit it, but in all honesty, Amazon Books is genius. It’s far more personal. A friendly librarian-esque employee who can quote Dante’s “Inferno” is far more likely to sell a book than that annoying customer service chat that pops up on every retailer’s website.
On top of this, nearly every store known to man has inventory problems. There is such a fine line between overstocked and understocked, but in true fictional fashion, Amazon Books only needs the bare necessities.
The best thing about it is that the price is right. All books are sold at online prices. Who can say no to that?
Lastly, data is on Amazon’s side. It has years and years of customer analysis — seeing who buys what and where. That’s some Kelley School of Business stuff right there.
Impressively, Amazon Books probably has every last bookstore on this planet singing, “I Wanna Be Like You.”
jlkarl@indiana.edu
@jkarl26
