This study reveals how incumbent actors leverage physical place as an asset for organizational adaptation in response to competitive digital threats. Through a longitudinal, qualitative analysis of the U.S. independent bookselling industry from 1995 to 2019, we outline how dispersed organizational actors responded to the rise of Amazon.com, an online retailer that threatened to displace traditional brick-and-mortar retail. While many analysts predicted that Amazon’s emergence would incite a “retail apocalypse,” independent bookstores proved to be far more resilient than expected. We introduce organizational emplacement – a process by which actors infuse meaning into physical “spaces,” thereby transforming them into valuable “places” – as a novel mechanism of organizational adaptation. Several practices are associated with this mechanism, including architecting the physical environment, anchoring to the local community, and sanctifying the meaning of place. Together, this study offers a counterbalance to narratives of digital ascendancy and shows how physical place can be marshalled for value creation in mature industries.