The only items I purchase from Amazon are e-books for my Kindle®. And, if I didn’t own a Kindle®, I’d never frequent the Amazon site. In my mind, it contributes to the demise of independently owned bookstores, those little gems in various communities that give personal service and don’t bug me to buy more books like the one I purchased last week.
We have such a bookstore in my community; its name is Forever Books. And while Amazon probably has distribution warehouses the size of football fields, this little store might have a thousand square feet at best. Yet, it is a haven for booklovers. Walls and tables are filled with all kinds of authors, from children’s literature to cooking to local authors to best-sellers to non-fiction to coffee table books to you-name-it.
Still a store this size can’t contain every literary offering like Amazon can. So Forever Books combats this with its policy that if you order a book that isn’t on its shelves by 11 AM today, you will have it by tomorrow. A staff member will call you to say it’s arrived.
Additionally, for every one hundred dollars I spent at FB, I get a five dollar discount on my next purchase. I also get personal recommendations, free gift wrapping, and the knowledge that my dollars are staying in the community.
Hey, Amazon, can you say that?
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