Nope. There are several reasons why individual secondhand bookshops are on the way out, but Oxfam is not a particularly significant one. I am honestly puzzled

Nope. There are several reasons why individual secondhand bookshops are on the way out, but Oxfam is not a particularly significant one. I am honestly puzzled by the author citing the Oxfam shop on St Giles as an exemplar, because it's a poor shop full of tat and tired old guidebooks to Greece in the 1960s. Even the Oxfam bookshop 15 miles up the road in little Chipping Norton has more interesting stock. But it's interesting that he cites an Oxford example, because independent retail in Oxford generally has been on the decline for 20+ years, and I suspect the woes of the secondhand bookshops in Oxford are the same as those of small retailers generally. Abebooks and Amazon, eBay etc. are a more significant cause. You can now order the rare book you want from a dealer somewhere in the countryside without them needing to pay for retail premises. One of my favourite secondhand bookshops, Sedgeberrow Books in Pershore, has recently gone that way - the shop has closed but the operation lives on as an Abebooks dealer. Pershore still has a secondhand bookshop, which is a lovely relic that doesn't even take debit/credit cards. Many of the survivals seem to fit that mould: intentionally arcane dealers who've chosen not to move with the times.