亚马逊逆流开实体书店

网络书店鼻祖及巨头亚马逊逆潮流而动，在网上卖了二十年的书后，其实体书店也向客户敞开了大门。亚马逊副总裁詹妮弗·卡斯特在声明中说到“开创了实体书店的，是我们手中的网络数据。”

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

bibliophiles 藏书家

bricks-and-mortar 实体店

trove 宝库

curate 精心打造

zilch 一无所有

阅读即将开始，建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用时间，并对照我们在文章最后给出的参考值来估算您的阅读速度。

Amazon opens its first bricks-and-mortar bookstore（523words）

By Henry Mance in London and Leslie Hook in San Francisco

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If you love small bookshops, and hate Amazon, you may want to think again.

The world’s largest online retailer, often blamed for killing high-street bookshops, opened its first ever bricks-and-mortar outlet for bibliophiles on Tuesday.

Located in the company’s home city of Seattle, Amazon Books stocks a relatively small number of titles —— resembling in some ways the thousands of bookstores in the US and elsewhere that have closed in recent years.

But in a departure from traditional stores, Amazon will change pricing on its books frequently to match prices online. As a result, books will not have price tags and customers must instead check prices at stands in the store or with an Amazon app.

Amazon Books will draw on the company’s treasure trove of online sales data and customer reviews to curate the most popular titles. Among the staff picks are Jeff Bezos’s recommendations, including The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman and his wife’s book, Trap.

Amazon already commands a third of print book sales and two-thirds of ebook sales in the US, according to Cowen research from November 2014, but growth in ebooks has slowed dramatically, particularly after publishers raised prices for ebooks after a recent pricing dispute. A Pew Research Center study last month found that 27 per cent of Americans had read an ebook in the past 12 months, slightly down on last year.

Traditional bookstores have struggled to match Amazon’s range, low prices and cheap delivery. But they have retained two powerful advantages —— immediacy and browsing.

“I love browsing around independent bookstores,” Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive, told the Guardian in 2001. “But even there, the store doesn’t instantly customise itself to suit your interests.”

“We hope this is not our only [store]. But we’ll see,” Jennifer Cast, the vice-president of Amazon Books, told the Seattle Times this week, without detailing the strategy behind the store, which is located in a shopping centre.

“The amount of investment here is zilch in their context,” said Mike Shatzkin, a publishing consultant about the company’s new book venture. “I think what it’s really about is learning.” Retailers of all types are looking to understand how shoppers’ behaviour online is influenced by their high-street habits.

Amazon says the store will not be a venue to promote books produced through Amazon Publishing, which other book chains often refuse to stock. However the shop will allow users to try Amazon devices such as the Kindle, the Fire tablet, and the Fire TV.

The shift to physical retail stores may have some downside for the internet retailer. “Part of Amazon’s magic is that they are often paid for the books [by consumers] before they have to pay [suppliers]. With retail stores, it’s the opposite,” said Mr Shatzkin.

He added that Amazon’s strong growth in online retail and cloud computing would console any investors worried about the new interest in low-growth physical retail business. “If Amazon had done this 10 years ago, it would have destroyed their share price,” Mr Shatzkin joked.

James Daunt of Waterstones, the UK bookseller, told the BBC he hoped Amazon’s push into physical retailing “falls flat on its face”.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1. Where is Amazon’s home city?

a. New York

b. Philadelphia

c. Seattle

d. Atlanta

2. Where is the price tag in Amazon’s bookstore?

a. on the cover of the book

b. nonexistent

c. on the shelf

d. flat price

3. Which one is not displayed in the bookstore?

a. iWatch

b. Kindle

c. Fire tablet

d. Fire TV

4. Who will be paid firstly from Amazon?

a. suppliers

b. landlord

c. consumers

d. government

[1] 答案 c. Seattle

解释：文章第二段，首家实体店开在了亚马逊的家乡 —— 西雅图。

[2] 答案 b. nonexistent

解释：书籍不设价签，可以通过亚马逊APP或在店里查到。

[3] 答案 a. iWatch

解释：店中也会展示亚马逊的网上电子产品，包括Kindle、Fire平板和TV 。

[4] 答案 c. consumers

解释：文章倒数第三段，这与其他一般的零售店相比是背道而驰的。