this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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Explain Like I'm Five

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ELI5: How is Amazon able to sell me books so much cheaper than brick and mortar book stores in my area (self.explainlikeimfive)
submitted 1 year ago by DrMango to c/explainlikeimfive
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I like shopping in book stores. There's something about wandering the aisles and waiting for a book to jump out at you that I can't get shopping online. Unfortunately, whenever I compare the price of a book Amazon has every in-person store beat, often pricing their offerings 30%-50% lower (or around $10/book in my experience) even when I go to a large chain like Barnes and Noble.

How is it that Amazon is able to afford to offer the books so much cheaper and also support all of the infrastructure involved in shipping it to my doorstep compared with in-person stores?

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I don't know the full details, but part of it:

  • In the store you can walk between the books. This takes loads of room. In the Amazon warehouse, this can be veeery cramped.
  • The land value of the store is probably mich higher than the Amazon warehouse land.
  • They sell much more, so all costs can be shared across a million orders, instead of across just 10 books sold.
[–] gk99 38 points 1 year ago

They can also afford to just sell at a loss if they want, similar to how Wal-Mart briefly sold games at $50 new instead of $60 as an incentive for people to buy from them instead of competitors.

[–] Num10ck 10 points 1 year ago

it used to be a rule of thumb in business that every time you double in size your costs go down about 20%.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

don't forget taxes evasions

[–] RQG 7 points 1 year ago

Biggest cost factor is the people working in a book store per book sold as well as their pay is mich higher for a book store. As an upside you get people who can actually recommend you great books based on your interests. The insane book love and knowledge those people often have is astonishing to me. That's what I very much am fine with paying a bit extra for.

[–] TurnItOff_OnAgain 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Also there are times Amazon prints on demand. They don't keep anything in stock taking up space, instead printing it as soon as it's ordered allowing them to save space

[–] Tangent5280 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Doesn't bookbinding actually take a long time? Atleast, for well bound books it does. Can't speak for the cheap glued on paperbacks.

[–] TurnItOff_OnAgain 2 points 1 year ago

Not sure about cost. I know when I've bought books on amazon they were the glued on paperbacks showing they were printed the day I ordered it.