‘Showrooming’ Amazon Books

Paul Constant:

If you were unaware, Amazon has actively promoted “showrooming”, which is the act of standing in a brick-and-mortar bookstore, looking at a book, and then buying it on Amazon, rather than from the bookstore. You’re using the bookstore as a showroom for Amazon, but the bookstore, which pays rent and salaries and all the other expenses of running a small business, gets absolutely nothing. BuzzFeed picked up my above tweet and ran it as part of a listicle about Amazon Books. My issue with BuzzFeed’s listicle was that they included my tweet as a “joke.” I was dead serious. So this morning, the good people at Shelf Awareness gave my tweet a signal boost and I clarified that I absolutely meant what I said:

Serious offer: first person who showrooms Amazon Books gets a gift certificate to @ElliottBayBooks. Send pictures.

It didn’t take long for someone to bite.

This is glorious.

★ Thursday, 12 November 2015