Book Shopping in Stores, Then Buying Online
mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com
mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com
The iPad and iBookstore have changed my behavior slightly in that I can both read the reviews and buy the (e)book at the same time. I'm still buying mostly physical books because I love the weight and feel of books but I'm starting to gradually switch.
Great point, I didn't even think about this while reading the article but your comment made me realize I do this a lot.
The independent bookstores that are still operating today are survivors. They've somehow survived the big box retailers, the bargain booksellers, Amazon, the Amazon / eBay used book secondary market, the rise of e-readers, the decline of magazine & newspapers, and the general decline of long-form reading across the board.
I doubt indie booksellers are worried at this point. They've survived the apocalypse several times over in the last 15 years. Barnes and Noble has something to worry about, but the indies survive purely on the sense of community among avid readers and generally being a staple of intellectual pride in the neighboring community.
If you have a local bookseller on your block, who is still operating it means they are a warrior and a survivor. I'd take a bet they're more worried about the economy and inflation than technology-based disruption at this point...
And in the last decade, many indie music stores have gone out of business. Small record stores are uncommon today. I wouldn't be surprised to see this same trend effect bookstores.
In the past few years I've only seen book stores close and I've never seen one open.
Edit: I'm a Canadian so the special "Canada" pricing makes the price difference 40% sometimes despite our dollar being close to parity. I don't like the disappearance of small bookstores either so I do the best I can to support them. What can brick-and-mortar stores do against Amazon? What Chapters does is sell a lot of other stuff besides books. Stuff they can mark up with higher margins.
The thing is, that other stuff can also be bought online. People browsing for books in store (before buying it from Amazon), don't really buy those other items either (why should they). So, these stores aren't really gaining anything from people browsing their selection, other than perhaps taking a cut from coffee shops.
On the other hand, if I want to gift a book, I almost always pick it up from a store. I generally don't plan ahead enough to order from Amazon (no Prime in Canada either :)) and dropping into a store works well. I am caught in two minds about these stores, I love going there, but I can't figure out a way for those guys to turn a profit without charging us the premium that they do.
Finally looking it up on Amazon means you can read the reviews -- and, funny enough, take advantage of Amazon to decide if the books should be brought or not.
But it is also clear that the future of book buying isn't going to happen in book stores -- I am kinda amazed they lasted as long as they did. With expenses for employees, heating, rent, theft, etc you would think the stores would have gone banckroupt a long time ago.
The only difference between online and offline referrals is the difficulty of tracking credit for the purchase but I think that can be surmountable.
I think the problem is the pricing in the stores. Often books are over 50% more in retail stores then on Amazon.
As for the pricing at b&m stores, at least in the case of smaller shops, they simply don't have the ability to price anywhere near Amazon. They don't have the leverage to negotiate low enough prices from publishers and distributors.
B&N I don't know about. I'd think they could discount somewhat more, even in store.
I find the practice repellant, but that's just me.
I've played hockey all my life. I know the type of skates and holders I usually like. When I see a sign like that, even though I'm pretty sure I'll buy the first pair I try on, it encourages me to take my business elsewhere.
For me, it's the reviews. I see a book (or product) that looks interesting, make a note of it and check the reviews online (typically Amazon) to see if it's worth the purchase. If the reviews are favorable and I decide I want to buy it, the choice is pretty simple; I'm already at the online store, the price is usually lower and the purchase is a click away (versus a drive back to the store and potentially waiting in line).
If I do bother to check the reviews on my phone while I'm in the store, then it's a simple price comparison, and the online retailer almost always wins again.
I think that this is more of an UI failure on Amazon's part than an inherent advantage of physical stores, a failure that a competent designer or even someone who things rationally should be able to solve quite easily.
Unfortunately I doubt we'll see an Amazon redesign proving my theory as long as any brick-and-mortar store is still standing.
A quick web search turns up: https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
All the affiliates in my state were eliminated that way.
There is little new to see here in this story. In general retail, physically checking out the competition's pricing has a long history. The only new twist is the barcode apps to check price immediately. Brick and mortar bookstores or "showrooms" are going to have to compete with better service and markup on non-book items. I don't think that's going to save the bookstore chains, though.
But honetly, the bookstore seems to be blossoming here. I've seen more bookstores opening than closing in teh last few years. Specially ones that serve coffe on the side(or maybe it's their main business), and ones that selled niche or used books. I'm sure the fact that importing books is ahrd for a private citizen has a lot of imapct on this. Shipping from Amazon takes at least two weeks, and I've waited as much as two months for a shipment from BWB. And I can't even think of a good book page for books in spanish, but I can't say I've looked to hard for that.
The activity is no different, but the impact is totally different. When you don't buy the book from the store, they lose potential income from a limited pool of local book buyers; if that happens too often, they don't make enough money and go out of business.
When you don't take the book from the library, they save money they would've spent handling you. If that happens too often, nothing's likely to happen, since most of the library's funding is from local taxes, traffic fines, and state grants (which includes federal money given to the states to support libraries).
The focus on customer ethics is misguided when you consider the likelihood that a good portion of bookstore's best customers are probably exactly the kind of people ready to rapidly adopt new reading mediums.
What I found is that sometimes the brick and mortar bookstore actually had the price advantage with these used books. When you factor in the minimum $3.99 shipping cost on a lot of used Amazon non-prime titles, they came out to being slightly more expensive than the used books I looked at in the store. This wasn't always the case, but it happened at least 30-40% of the time.
I think amazon could make physical spaces in certain locations as somewhat of a club or browsing experience an sell the books near the online price with same/ next day ordering in. Could be like an extended prime membership. Whether they would go down this probably low margin path though is another thing.
My usual temptation is different: to go onto Amazon and review some book that I bought elsewhere. I don't do this--it implies no economic loss to Amazon, but it seems to me to involve bad manners.
Really, just figuring this out in 2011?