Redirecting Digital to Physical
The Amazon Books Store Experience
It was a gorgeous summer evening in San Jose. The petunia shrubs were in full bloom. Californians were thronging the shopping malls, thankful to be outdoors after a long, extended pandemic.
Excited to see what Santana Row had to offer, I headed towards the stores beautifully stacked one after the other. I ended up in front of Amazon Bookstore, and in I went, more out of curiosity about the online retailer’s offline experience than out of a genuine desire to purchase anything.
To much of my surprise, the store was nothing close to the massive Barnes & Noble retail outlet in terms of size. Rather it was much smaller—just around a thousand feet I would guess - neatly optimised for an efficient product placement to create a wholesome experience.
Customer-centric at its core
As a testimony to “customer reviews matter the most”, the store curates books that are selected from customer reviews on goodreads, reflecting real reader’s opinion as opposed to that of book critics.
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Non-intrusive guided tour
It was quite useful to be guided by signage like “Hot Right Now” featuring the books everyone is talking about, “Page Turners”, featuring books Kindle readers finished in three days or less, “Anytime Gifts” and “Great Gifts Under $20” (a time savior for shoppers on a budget).
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Experience the continuum
Wooden floors, warm lamps, dark shelves against a neutral setting to meet the right color contrast with few books in each section, enabling an easy browsing experience, were just a few observations about the seamless experience.
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Low-key tech interface
With no digital screens to interrupt in-store interactions, technology is sparingly used to facilitate a rewarding experience. Despite data being an integral part of a personalised customer journey, it’s never really obvious, and for all the implicit reasons!
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Going the extra mile
The last leg of my experience was in for some surprise. During the checkout process, I was asked if I had a Prime membership. Even though it was linked to my India account, I earned a 30% off on the billing amount. I was delighted to get a whopping discount and felt like a really valued Amazon customer.