[hayksaakian]

To respond to your note about browsing.

Typically books are arranged alphabetically and thematically. Some times, shelf placement is a variable in marketing.

When you take shelf placement as marketing to it's logical extreme, you end up with something like Amazon -- where you've optimized for conversions rather than overall user experience. As any Sales / Marketing person can tell you, best experience != most conversions.

People are indecisive when confronted with many choices.

I could see browsing as a great ideal for subscription services though. Amazon and most e-commerce is a bad comparison though, as browsing is generally bad for transactional businesses (due to reasons above). This is yet another reason why traditional book stores are at a disadvantage.

[hosh]

Sure, and granted, the personal device I was thinking of is to arrange it thematically on how I want to present the books to guests. Not necessarily as product categories (genre). However, to say that Amazon takes this to the extreme misses the point. Amazon is optimized for conversion only because there has not been better browsing experiences. You go to Amazon when you are looking for something specific and maybe buy a book off of the recommendation. You don't go to Amazon when you are bored and looking for something new to read.

I think though, the rest of your argument is sketchy. "Amazon and most e-commerce is a bad comparison though, as browsing is generally bad for transactional businesses" That's great, except that Amazon is not optimized for browsing, it is optimized for searching, as I've mentioned in my comment.