Book Depository customers hit out at Amazon as online seller closes after two decades

‘Delivering your favourite reads to you has been a pleasure’, says online retailer, shut down amid ongoing Amazon job cuts

Amazon-owned retailer Book Depository will close later this month weeks after the US tech announced thousands of job cuts during the “uncertain economic conditions”.

The UK-based online book seller, acquired by Amazon in 2011, made the announcement on Tuesday, saying: “We are sorry to let you know that Book Depository will be closing on 26 April 2023.

"You can still place orders until midday on 26 April and we will continue to deliver your purchases and provide support for any order issues until 23 June.

"From all of us at Book Depository we want to say thank you. Delivering your favourite reads to you since 2007 has been a pleasure."

It was not immediately clear exactly how many jobs would be lost as a result of the closure.

Book Depository was founded in Gloucestershire before opening up offices in Madrid, Cape Town and Chennai.It also has delivery operations in the UK and Australia.

According to its website Book Depository offered more than 20 million books with free delivery worldwide. It said its vision was to provide “all books to all” by improving range, access and affordability.

Twitter users reacted to the news with a mixture of sadness and anger, with some directly blaming Amazon for the closure.

Book Depository will be closing on 26 April (Book Depository)

One person said: “A lot of you aren’t aware of how *bad* this really is. Many out there relied on BookDepository to get their books at reasonable prices.

“It was also one of the few places you could get indie books if you lived outside the US/UK.

“It’s truly a sad day for the intl’ book crowd.”

Another said: “NO! F*ck Amazon for buying over a rival and then closing it down. I am so p***ed off at Amazon right now.”

Earlier this month Amazon announced plans to axe 9,000 more jobs in the coming weeks.

The job cuts would mark the second largest round of layoffs in the company’s history, adding to the 18,000 employees the company said it would lay off in January.

In a memo sent to staff, CEO Andy Jessy said the second phase of the company’s annual planning process was completed in March and led to the additional job cuts.

He said Amazon will still hire in some strategic areas.

“Some may ask why we didn’t announce these role reductions with the ones we announced a couple months ago,” he said. “The short answer is that not all of the teams were done with their analyses in the late fall; and rather than rush through these assessments without the appropriate diligence, we chose to share these decisions as we’ve made them so people had the information as soon as possible.”