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Comment by flappyeagle | Hacker News Reader

Anecdote: B&N was by far the best place to buy x-mas gifts this year, especially for kids.

I wish Amazon brought back their 4-Star physical retail stores, it was a great place to buy gifts in person. The concept was simple: everything in the store was an item that was rated at least 4.0 stars online and there was an electronic price tag that kept its price in sync with the online version.

I spent time at the Walnut Creek one -- it was a good execution of a kind of obvious idea. It was weird that they shut them down. That said -- smaller versions of the same format in airports/commute-centers would be great.

I asked a clerk at the Pleasant Hill store about that closure; it was due to rent increases. Figures, considering the location in downtown Walnut Creek. Sure was a lovely store, though. Fairfield and Reno still have big stores if you're ever in the area.

My upper comment was about the Amazon store they had in WC… but: B&N re-opened in Walnut Creek just below Ruth’s Chris. More like the Concord format.

Amazon is mostly an online company, they're not great at managing storefronts. They also really over-expanded their warehouses and physical presences which hemorrhaged cash (mostly led by Dave Clark who later stepped down as retail CEO) which was quickly shut down by Jassy who is more focused on AWS/cloud than retail presence.

I went to a Four Star store just once, to trade in a dying Kindle. The customer service was incredible, and the trade-in was actually better than promised online. I was sad to see them close.

Serious question: how many products on Amazon aren’t rated at least 4.0. Even the crappiest Chinese alphabet brand products are typically rated like 4.3-4.5.

It's hard to trust Amazon with quality anything these days. I wouldn't shop there as for I think the employees would be less than helpful or happy to be there and Id be constantly worried about counterfeits or returns.

It seemed like 90+ or more of the traffic I ever saw at the Amazon store near me was returns, including me every time I visited.

I doubt Amazon saw those as profitable, and they either didn't track well how much my purchases (and I'm assuming others) declined when it was no longer easy to deal with a person, or decided the impending labor/unionization battles would be best avoided.

Might well be profitable if it’s cheaper to ship a truck load once every couple week than dozens of individual packages every day.

I think that meant more when the reviews were not egregiously astroturfed like that are now.

If this isn't by design, it's by very happy accidental engagement with the fact that when it comes to media and related things, the time physical copies of it matter most are gifting-times. It just feels more genuinely gift-y to hand someone physical media than message them with it.

And B&N has become a media-heavy giftshop.

Ugh, while true, now I'm worried that after killing a generation of local bookstores they're gunning for my local game/hobby store.

Anecdote: B&N was by far the best place to buy x-mas gifts this year

It was also by far the best place to buy board games this year, since they had a 50% off sale Dec. 26 and 27 on all their games and many of their stores have a fair selection of titles. (Some sample prices on some hot titles: Ark Nova for $37, Ruins of Arnak and Everdell for $30/each).

From what I was told by a B&N worker, this was an extension of the 2-day post-xmas 50%-off-all-hardcovers sale that they'd started doing recently.

I spent a ton of money there yesterday exactly because of the 50% off hardcovers and board games.

I haven't shopped in one in a while but after seeing how much stuff they have that I'm interested I'll be back. They even had lego sets that were sold out elsewhere.

We’ve done almost all our Christmas shopping there for years (younger kids). Still were able to do a lot of it there this year (tween to young teen age groups).

The toys there are some of our favorites (Lego and Calico Critters) and they have a lot of fun toys you’ve never heard of but are fun for the kids to try.

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