The online shop Book Depository is expected to close at the end of April, its parent company Amazon has announced it’d decided to eliminate a number of positions across its devices and books business.
The company based in Gloucester is a bookseller that founded in 2004 by Stuart Felton and Andrew Crawford, a former Amazon employee, with the idea of ‘selling less of more’ rather than more of less. It aimed to sell 6m titles covering a large variety of genres, as opposed to focusing on bestsellers. While it was originally a rival to Amazon, it was acquired by them in 2011, causing a worrisome stranglehold that the American company has on the UK book trade.
An email was apparently sent out to vendors and publishing partners of Book Depository explaining that they will be closing and the last date customers can place an order is April 26th.
Andy Chart, the head of vendor management explained “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. 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 make printed books more accessible to readers of the world.”