Amazon.com to open brick-and-mortar bookstore in Seattle

Considered the bane of many brick-and-mortar bookshops, Amazon.com is entering the business with a physical bookstore it is opening in Seattle on Tuesday.

The online retailer sees the store that it is opening in University Village as a physical extension of its online business.

The book store follows other steps taken by Amazon to offer physical outlets to its customers, including order pick up and return counters in shopping centers and staffed pick-up and drop-off locations at universities.

The probable reasoning behind the move to set up a bookstore is that there is still a huge market out there both for books and other products sold through brick-and-mortar stores. E-commerce sales of $83.9 billion in the second quarter of 2015 accounted for 7.2% of total retail sales, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, although online sales are growing.

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