Soullessness Always Shows

A good bookshop is a genteel black hole.

― Terry Pratchett

Only once did I ever step foot into an Amazon bookshop.

I visited the one in Washington, DC, and fled after five minutes.

The shelves' contents revealed a company without spirit.

Good bookshops, as Terry Pratchett observed, lure customers to dwell—for hours on end. To book-bathe and sip coffee while communing in the presence of genteel minds.

A soulless bookshop, on the other hand, repels customers. 

Its offerings and atmosphere signal that the owners do not read and that they wouldn't know Camus from Kanye.

So it comes as no surprise that Amazon has decided to close its 68 bookshops.

The business lesson here is fundamental.

An offering with no soul is an offering bound to fail.

No amount of slick store décor can disguise an absence of Geist.

How about your business?

Does it have no soul?