Amazon sets up shop in the heart of the publishing industry

Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, has often struck a defiant tone when asked about the company’s dominance of the book industry.

[...] Amazon is bringing its experimental, data-driven approach to physical retail to midtown Manhattan, the heart of the publishing industry.

[...] it fits with Amazon’s continuing expansion into nearly every corner of the publishing industry.

Since its founding more than 20 years ago, Amazon has become the dominant book retailer, and has created niches along the way.

The company recently introduced Amazon Charts, weekly best-seller lists that track not only the top-selling digital and print books on Amazon, but the ones that customers spend the most time reading.

Drawing on data collected from Kindle users and Audible listeners, the most-read list compiles which books are most popular with its customers across digital formats.

With its lists, Amazon wants to redefine the notion of a best-seller, expanding it to include books that are “borrowed” from its e-book subscription service, and ones that are streamed on Audible.

All of Amazon’s acquisitions and new features are having a cumulative effect, allowing the company to draw on its vast customer base and troves of data to discover what is popular, and return that information to customers, creating a lucrative feedback loop.

“Unlike lists from individual retailers, our best-seller lists are based on a detailed analysis of book sales from a wide range of retailers in markets nationwide who provide us with specific and confidential context of their sales each week,” she said.

Crowdsourcing and data mining are also driving the company’s approach to its bookstores, which act as showcases for books popular with customers on the site.

While the stores have traditional categories, like fiction, nonfiction and travel, the most eye-catching shelves feature categories culled from Amazon’s customer data.

The first thing customers see when they walk into the store is a large display table, labeled Highly Rated, which includes books with an average rating of 4.8 stars or higher on a scale of 5, among them best sellers like “Born a Crime” by Trevor Noah and “Shoe Dog” by Phil Knight.

[...] shoppers must scan books with an Amazon app on their cell phone or at one of the store’s digital kiosks.

Displaying the full cover of each book mimics the visual look of Amazon’s website, and might lure customers to unfamiliar titles.