Amazon Books, the e-commerce giant’s seemingly incongruous brick-and-mortar venture, is now open at Westfield UTC mall in University City. The bookstore marks the company’s second formal foray into offline retail.

The San Diego shop premiered with little fanfare on Sept. 7, and is now open daily during regular mall hours. The 3,500 square-foot venue is located in the Sears wing of the upscale mall, next to the Tesla store and across from the Apple store.



For the record: Westfield UTC mall is in University City. An earlier version of the story misidentified the city.

The opening comes just 10 months after the first Amazon Books store debuted at University Village, a Seattle-area outdoor mall. It arrives amid a shift in the offline book-selling business, which, after years of decline, has made a partial comeback. In 2015, the total number of bookstores surpassed 2,200, compared to 1,400 store in 2009, according to the American Booksellers Association. Amazon, often considered a threat to independent booksellers, has two additional mall bookstores in the works for the Portland and Chicago areas.

The physical stores reinforce Amazon’s original mission as an online bookseller, said Miro Copic, marketing professor at San Diego State University.


Though smaller than the Seattle store, San Diego’s Amazon Books location is similar in style and function, featuring a distinctive exterior brick wall, as well as an interior crafted not only to sell a curated selection books, but also to heavily promote Amazon’s Prime subscription service and its electronic devices.

“We’re giving customers an additional way to discover books and devices they’ll love by integrating the benefits of offline and online shopping in a physical store,” company spokesperson Deborah Bass said of Amazon’s strategy.

Amazon Books shoppers will find a limited number of titles (roughly 3,500 books in total), with books picked based on a variety of truly Amazonian factors such as online customer reviews and sales data. Books are placed face-out on the shelves with an accompanying card that includes the average rating and a review — but not the price.

“I think (the store) is really good. Even though Amazon Prime gives two-day shipping … here it’s just instant,” said Roxana Mashek, who purchased a copy of comedian Aziz Ansari’s book, “Modern Romance,” on Wednesday. “You get the price that you want to pay from Amazon, but you get instant gratification; you get the book now.”


Despite its name, the venue isn’t really a bookstore — at least not in the familiar sense. Here, books act as a vehicle to drive consumers deeper into the Amazon system, Copic said. Books, he said, are small but browsable, don’t have a shelf-life and, more importantly, can act as conversation starters with staffers, who can then teach customers about the benefits of Prime membership.

In fact, Prime, the company’s $99-per-year membership service that includes two-day shipping and streaming video, factors heavily into the store experience. Staffers and in-store signage remind patrons at every turn that Prime members often pay less than retail prices for books, a point that is reinforced with each smartphone price check.

“Amazon is making sure that it gets as broad a way possible to distribute the (overall) Amazon store to the consumer,” Copic said. “They want to use this as a showpiece location; to showcase new products and technologies, and real cutting-edge products that might not be their own.”

San Diego shoppers will indeed find that the store is designed to funnel them into Amazon’s broader e-commerce marketplace. Sales associates’ most frequent refrain — the question: “Do you have the Amazon app on your phone?” — is a constant reminder that something larger is at play. Shoppers are not only trained on how to download the Amazon app and scan books to check prices, but are also encouraged to pay with their Amazon account, via smartphone, at checkout.


In addition to selling books and Prime memberships, the storefront doubles as Amazon’s hardware showroom. Tables featuring the company’s familiar lineup gadgets — the Kindle, Fire TV and Fire tablets — comprise about a quarter of the total retail space. Amazon’s up-and-coming tech toys, the Echo and its portable counterpart the Tap, are also on display so shoppers can see, feel and hear the digital personal assistants. Here, shoppers will also find a sampling of smart home devices from other company’s such as Samsung and Phillips.

“They want to show how the Amazon interconnected devices can simplify your life,” Copic said, “kind of like what Apple does.”

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jennifer.vangrove@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1840 Twitter: @jbruin