Selection
As opposed to a brick and mortar shop, a webshop has the option to have a near unlimited selection of books at the customers beck and call. Now, there are some crucial elements to selection that borders into availability and information. If a book is out of print or in some other way unavailable the customer needs to be aware of this. Optimally these books should then be made available through Print On Demand(POD) or rerouted to other print versions of the same book to increase the selection available in the webshop.
Price
Customers are price sensitive, even more so in deflationary periods. If a customer can get the product cheaper elsewhere you might find yourself with less customers than your site should be able to attract. This is especially true online, as getting hold of comparative prices on the web is way easier than in the physical world.
Availability
If a product is available NOW is has an increased sales potential as opposed to being available later. In the case of e-books, the books are always available right away if the book is available at all. The only thing standing in the way of physical books having the same instant gratification is the lack of a major POD database with local outlets. Both of which should pose no problems with further market penetration from the Espresso Book machine.
Convenience
People lead busy lives, and often don’t have the time to browse through a brick and mortar book store. The convenience of getting a book delivered directly to your door as opposed to slogging through the rain and hail is not to be underestimated. The webshop has to have a good distribution system in place to handle customers all over the world to capitalize on its potential. A good case in point here is the book depository, which was just bought by Amazon.
Information
Information is crucial to a sale, and web based shops are at an advantage here as opposed to brick and mortar shops. The more information that is available, the better the chance of a product being sold. After all, if a customer can't figure out what a product is, he's less likely to make a purchase. The information has to be organized in such a fashion that it triggers the optimal amount of sales, so remember to experiment with different options to find the golden spot.
Discovery
By leading customers toward products they didn't know existed, Amazon has created a sense of discovery (in essence "customers who bought this, also looked at/bought these books") Any bookstore would be foolish not to integrate such features.
