Amazon has announced they are shuttering the Book Depository at the end of April. The UK bookselling business has been around since 2004 and was initially launched by former Amazon employees. Due to their success in selling physical books online and not wanting to compete, Amazon acquired them in 2011. This closure is due to cost savings measures by Amazon in their hardware and books division. One of the great things about buying books from Book Depository, there was no Amazon branding, so customers needed to learn Amazon-owned them.
According to the trade magazine The Bookseller, an email sent out to vendors and publishing partners explained that Book Depository would be closing and that the last date customers can place orders is April 26th. “Over the coming weeks, we will complete a winding down of the business, including discontinuing our listings as a marketplace seller and closing our website,” Andy Chart, head of vendor management, wrote. “I would like to take this opportunity to say a big thank you, from everyone at Book Depository and our book-loving customers, for your supportive partnership over the years in helping us to make printed books more accessible to readers around the world,” he concluded.
This was one of many stand-alone companies to close. Amazon confirmed a few weeks back that it was shuttering the esteemed camera review site DPReview, another U.K.-based entity that it had bought initially in 2007. And last year, Amazon revealed it was shuttering dozens of physical retail locations in the U.S. and U.K., including its brick-and-mortar bookstores, while it’s also pulling the plug on some of its Amazon Go stores.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
