I was driving down Rt. 17 yesterday, taking care of some errands, when a semi-interesting notion struck me. I passed the closed-down Tower Records and pulled into the lot of the Barnes & Noble in Paramus, figuring a meander through its extensive used book section would do me good. I’m weird like that.
On the way out, I stopped to check out a new book that I was thinking of getting. It looked interesting, and my first thought was, “I’ll pick that up on Amazon when I get home.” After all, the list price of the book was $30, but Amazon would likely have it for $20. Plus, I wouldn’t have to stand on line.
And that’s when I had this odd notion: for many consumers, a brick-and-mortar store is only intended for impulse purchases.
I don’t like to extrapolate from my experiences into the world-at-large, but I know there are an awful lot of people who buy almost all of their books, music, movies, etc. online. For us, isn’t a place like B&N or Borders only there for browsing purposes?
Of course, there are times when you need to pick something up in a bookstore, record store, or DVD store, even though those are all converging into single locations. But in my experience I only buy on-site if the item is a gift for someone and needs to be in-hand that day, or if Amazon has a delay on the product.
That said, even gift-buying is something I take care of online for the most part (supplemented by purchases during my travels). In fact, I wanted to pick up a CD for a coworker for the holiday, so I stopped at the nearby Borders. The CD was $18.99, which I found utterly ridiculous. Back in the office, I ordered it on Amazon for $11.98.
So, maybe I’m asking something obvious, but does it seem to you that a physical location for “content” (books, music, movies) is pretty much a browsing library? Let me know.