5 ms·

What is the future of bookselling? As much as I understand the efficiencies of Amazon, browsing through a bookstore can't be replaced by online; it's a differe

by kongqiu 16y ago

What is the future of bookselling? As much as I understand the efficiencies of Amazon, browsing through a bookstore can't be replaced by online; it's a different experience.

keiferski 16y ago
Admission fees? Retail stores are increasingly losing to online services, so the brick-and-mortars might have to focus on the experience of being in a bookstore. For more on this idea, The Experience Economy is a good read. (Skip everything but the first 2-3 chapters. After that, it gets redundant and a little weird at the end.) http://www.amazon.com/Experience-Economy-Theater-Every-Business/dp/0875848192 http://www.amazon.com/Experience-Economy-Theater-Every-Busin...
- thefool 16y ago
  I think setting up cafes in book stores is the model a lot of them use.
  - keiferski 16y ago
    But cafes aren't really selling books -- they're selling coffee and cookies. A lot of people seem to just hang out in book stores, without buying anything, so I really wonder if the cafe business model will work out long-term.
SkyMarshal 16y ago
They may also continue to find more and more creative loss leaders to get people into the bookstores. Anecdotally, I know when I go to Borders or BN to work and use the free wifi, more than 50% of the time I end up buying a book too, and almost 100% of the time something from coffee shop.
Qz 16y ago
I'm under thirty, but I can't stand e-books and will be reading from dead trees until they stop printing on them.
- kongqiu 16y ago
  Hear hear! There's someone else like me out there!
- wyclif 16y ago
  Voted you up because I like the sentiment behind your comment and love printed books, but I still am eco-friendly enough to think it's better to not cut down the trees if we don't have to.
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    Books are kept, usually. Magazines are a far greater waste of paper - though that said, most paper is from farmed wood nowadays.
fmw 16y ago
Inventory: a mix between bestsellers (e.g. Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter) and the long tail, with very specific titles tailored to smaller audiences. Amazon excels at the long tail and traditional stores can't compete with that, as they're restricted to high street real estate with limited capacity. Another problem for small stores is that they don't have the knowledge and expertise to give advice to their customers on what titles to buy for niche markets (or buy the right stock to begin with beyond using the besteller lists), which Amazon does very well through user generated reviews and the recommendation system. This is a major concern for brick and mortars, because people value a trustworthy authority they can go to that will tell them what to read next (as the erudite bookseller of the past would do in nostalgic stories). Medium: Moving towards digital, but physical books will remain relevant. Eventually digital might become so superior from a practical perspective that physical books will become collectors items in the sense that people will want to have some of them around for nostalgic reasons (e.g. religious texts, favorite authors). But people are programmed to hoard physical objects, so even when digital becomes superior they'll still want some books. In the mid-term you will see printing on demand in a reasonable quality distributed through and printed by local stores[1], allowing them to participate in the long tail segment instead of just stocking bestsellers. Shopping experience: It's fun to go to a bookshop and browse, even if you're going to order the books you like from Amazon in the end. This will become something you do on a free afternoon as a form of leisure (as many of us do already). Successful shops will figure out a business model around this, focussing on the experience instead of the practicalities. For more practical purchases (e.g. "I need a book on Haskell, pronto") people will use Amazon instead. Small players will remain active in niche markets, like selling collectible antiquarian books, where focus and specialization gives them an edge over big players like Borders or Amazon. This will mostly happen over the internet, which is a change that is already happening. A good friend of mine runs a high street antiquarian bookshop and has days where he sells for less than $20 in his brick and mortar store, but makes up for this by selling online. The main reasons for keeping the brick and mortar shop are nostalgic, as a warehouse for this inventory and as an avenue for people to come in and sell him new stock. [1] That is if copyright holders will go along with this approach, because the publishing, movie and music industries are rackets that don't necessarily have the best interest of their customers in mind (customers as in consumers as well as resellers like bookshops and record stores).
trotsky 16y ago
Similar to many retail sectors aka nothing very bright? When the WSJ story about in store smart phone price shopping ran there were people quite proudly commenting that they shopped at borders to find their books and then ordered them all online. If people don't value the retail experience, it's very possible it'll disappear aside from a few niches like perishables and very expensive impulse items.

by kongqiu 16y ago

What is the future of bookselling? As much as I understand the efficiencies of Amazon, browsing through a bookstore can't be replaced by online; it's a different experience.

keiferski 16y ago

Admission fees? Retail stores are increasingly losing to online services, so the brick-and-mortars might have to focus on the experience of being in a bookstore. For more on this idea, The Experience Economy is a good read. (Skip everything but the first 2-3 chapters. After that, it gets redundant and a little weird at the end.) http://www.amazon.com/Experience-Economy-Theater-Every-Business/dp/0875848192 http://www.amazon.com/Experience-Economy-Theater-Every-Busin...

thefool 16y ago
I think setting up cafes in book stores is the model a lot of them use.
- keiferski 16y ago
  But cafes aren't really selling books -- they're selling coffee and cookies. A lot of people seem to just hang out in book stores, without buying anything, so I really wonder if the cafe business model will work out long-term.

SkyMarshal 16y ago

They may also continue to find more and more creative loss leaders to get people into the bookstores. Anecdotally, I know when I go to Borders or BN to work and use the free wifi, more than 50% of the time I end up buying a book too, and almost 100% of the time something from coffee shop.

Qz 16y ago

I'm under thirty, but I can't stand e-books and will be reading from dead trees until they stop printing on them.

kongqiu 16y ago
Hear hear! There's someone else like me out there!
wyclif 16y ago
Voted you up because I like the sentiment behind your comment and love printed books, but I still am eco-friendly enough to think it's better to not cut down the trees if we don't have to.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  Books are kept, usually. Magazines are a far greater waste of paper - though that said, most paper is from farmed wood nowadays.

fmw 16y ago

Inventory: a mix between bestsellers (e.g. Da Vinci Code, Harry Potter) and the long tail, with very specific titles tailored to smaller audiences. Amazon excels at the long tail and traditional stores can't compete with that, as they're restricted to high street real estate with limited capacity. Another problem for small stores is that they don't have the knowledge and expertise to give advice to their customers on what titles to buy for niche markets (or buy the right stock to begin with beyond using the besteller lists), which Amazon does very well through user generated reviews and the recommendation system. This is a major concern for brick and mortars, because people value a trustworthy authority they can go to that will tell them what to read next (as the erudite bookseller of the past would do in nostalgic stories). Medium: Moving towards digital, but physical books will remain relevant. Eventually digital might become so superior from a practical perspective that physical books will become collectors items in the sense that people will want to have some of them around for nostalgic reasons (e.g. religious texts, favorite authors). But people are programmed to hoard physical objects, so even when digital becomes superior they'll still want some books. In the mid-term you will see printing on demand in a reasonable quality distributed through and printed by local stores[1], allowing them to participate in the long tail segment instead of just stocking bestsellers. Shopping experience: It's fun to go to a bookshop and browse, even if you're going to order the books you like from Amazon in the end. This will become something you do on a free afternoon as a form of leisure (as many of us do already). Successful shops will figure out a business model around this, focussing on the experience instead of the practicalities. For more practical purchases (e.g. "I need a book on Haskell, pronto") people will use Amazon instead. Small players will remain active in niche markets, like selling collectible antiquarian books, where focus and specialization gives them an edge over big players like Borders or Amazon. This will mostly happen over the internet, which is a change that is already happening. A good friend of mine runs a high street antiquarian bookshop and has days where he sells for less than $20 in his brick and mortar store, but makes up for this by selling online. The main reasons for keeping the brick and mortar shop are nostalgic, as a warehouse for this inventory and as an avenue for people to come in and sell him new stock. [1] That is if copyright holders will go along with this approach, because the publishing, movie and music industries are rackets that don't necessarily have the best interest of their customers in mind (customers as in consumers as well as resellers like bookshops and record stores).

trotsky 16y ago

Similar to many retail sectors aka nothing very bright? When the WSJ story about in store smart phone price shopping ran there were people quite proudly commenting that they shopped at borders to find their books and then ordered them all online. If people don't value the retail experience, it's very possible it'll disappear aside from a few niches like perishables and very expensive impulse items.