Amazon Is Opening a Brick-and-Mortar Bookstore Near Boston

Amazon’s Seattle bookstore. Photo via AP

Amazon launched in 1995 with the slogan “Earth’s Biggest Bookstore,” reflecting their intent to turn the brick-and-mortar industry on its head. Two decades later, the company’s bringing its push for a national book chain of its own to Boston’s suburbs.

The e-commerce juggernaut is opening a bookstore at the Legacy Place shopping mall in Dedham, reports Forbes, after discovering a job listing for assistant store managers. Amazon opened its first bookstore at an outdoor mall near its headquarters in Seattle, with additional locations planned for San Diego, Portland, and Chicago.

Another bookstore is planned for Boston as well, Amazon confirmed to Forbes.

Amazon’s advent has wreaked havoc on traditional bookstores, with Borders shuttering in 2011, and Barnes and Noble, the country’s largest bookstore chain, smarting. “We’re definitely going to open additional stores, how many we don’t know yet,” Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos told stockholders in May, according to the Wall Street Journal. “In these early days it’s all about learning, rather than trying to earn a lot of revenue.”

Amazon has had frosty relations with Boston in recent months. After a Bloomberg investigation needled the company for offering same-day delivery for Prime customers in every Boston neighborhood except centrally located, predominantly black Roxbury, Amazon received public backlash from local officials including Mayor Marty Walsh, City Councilor Tito Jackson, and Sen. Ed Markey.

Several days later, Amazon announced it would expand same-day Prime delivery service to Roxbury.