Rumor of the Day: Amazon's Bricks-and-Mortar Venture

The online rumor mill has cranked up to full volume in response to a report from the Good E-Reader blog that Amazon is planning to open a retail store in Seattle sometime during the next few months. The rumor, which has been floated before, comes just days after major book retailers Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million and Indigo Books & Music announced they would not be carrying titles from Amazon Publishing in their stores.

Citing "Amazon sources close to the situation," Good E-Reader wrote that the project "is a test to gauge the market and see if a chain of stores would be profitable. They intend on going with the small boutique route with the main emphasis on books from their growing line of Amazon Exclusives and selling their e-readers and tablets."

Bloomberg's Hitha Prabhakar also said that "sources are now telling me" about Amazon's bricks-and-mortar project, though Forbes magazine cautioned "this is not the first time this rumor has cropped up."

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