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| photo: Geekwire | |
In a move that emphasizes the connection between its overall corporate strategies and its bricks-and-mortar bookstores, Amazon Books has a new pricing policy, offering discounted prices only to Amazon Prime members and selling books at full list price to customers who don't pay for Prime, Geekwire reported.
Prime membership costs $99 year or $10.99 a month, and includes shipping deals and access to songs, movies, TV shows and some books, among other benefits. The company has made growth of Prime membership a high priority.
Since opening its first Amazon Books store in Seattle, Wash., a year ago, Amazon had offered customers the same price on all books--the discounted price offered online. For Amazon to sell any book at list price is a striking turn for the deep discounter and emphasizes that at the new bricks-and-mortar stores, building Prime membership is more important to the company than traditional book retailing.
Books at Amazon Books continue to have no marked price; customers need to use an app to scan the book or take it to a scanner in the store.
The new policy doesn't apply to Amazon devices--Kindles, Fires, Echo and more--sold in Amazon's bookstores. The policy is in effect at Amazon's three bookstores, in Seattle, San Diego, Calif., and Tigard, Ore.