Inside Amazon's First Brick-and-Mortar Bookstore

GeekWire takes us on a journey through Amazon's first 7,400 square foot bookstore.

Jennifer Cast, one of Amazon’s first executives who recently returned to the company after a 13-year hiatus, isn’t surprised that the company is opening the full-fledged retail location — its very first — on Tuesday in Seattle’s University Village shopping mall.

“You ask why now, but in some ways, it’s kind of like, why not?” Cast told GeekWire from inside Amazon Books, where employees bustled around on Monday evening, putting the final touches on Amazon’s new store. “We’ve got this great information that can help people find books they love in a different way. It’s a great mixture of art and science for us.”

That vision is the core of Amazon Books, where Amazon is utilizing data and information from its massive online store inside a brick-and-mortar building that smells of printed paper and also features the company’s newest hardware products.

“To be a great bookstore, we really think that bringing the information from Amazon.com to this store helps people have a different view into books,” said Cast, VP of Amazon Books. “That’s the goal. We believe that we can create a different kind of store and one that customers will want.”

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