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Amazon Expanding Into Los Angeles

This article is more than 6 years old.

Not long after real estate developer Rick Caruso, sitting on a panel at the Milken Global Conference, talked up an alleged conversation with Amazon regarding the potential for brick-and-mortar stores for merchandise aside from books, Amazon announced yet another forthcoming bookstore.

This latest addition to the increasingly robust roster of stores is Century City, Los Angeles. The company currently has stores in six locations; the Los Angeles store marks the seventh planned to open at a later date .

It's getting to the point where it's clear that, were Amazon using bookstores as an "experiment" meant to gauge the level of success of larger brick-and-mortar operations, the company seems to be ready to move to the next phase. The aggressive opening schedule seems to indicate that these bookstores are doing well enough--satisfying whatever hypotheses the company developed--to keep going. And, if Caruso's statement is true, they're doing well enough to push Amazon to consider battling Walmart on another front (regardless of if they follow through).

Regardless, it's probably not great for the bounty of independent bookstores to see Amazon, not-so-lovingly nicknamed "The Bookstore Killer," experimenting with brick-and-mortar retail (although whether the company actually did harm the existence of the indie bookstore is up for debate).