The Future of Bookstores: Lead-Gen, not Dead Trees

http://blog.gaborcselle.com/2010/09/future-of-bookstores-lead-gen-not-dead.html

by mark_h • 16 years ago

18 10 16 years ago

blog.gaborcselle.com

ojbyrne• 16 years ago

If you follow the link to the story about the Borders at 3rd and Townsend closing, there's a comment from the head of the HOA, saying its because their lease was not renewed, not because of their sales being poor. Kind of sucks the life out of that argument.

mechanical_fish• 16 years ago

That's good, because the proposed business plan is apparently isomorphic to "become Starbucks". And that's a pretty crowded niche already.

mquander2• 16 years ago

"Except, of course, I didn't buy a lot of books."

I guess that explains why the author views books as entirely dispensable aspects of a bookstore.

If the future of bookstores is becoming coffeehouses, then, by definition, bookstores have no future.

SageRaven• 16 years ago

Off-the-shelf retail prices for books are insane. $20 for a large-format paperback of Under the Dome? Please.

Perhaps the new model for physical bookstores should be that of a private library, except without the checkout aspect. The main income comes from impulse buys of high-margin foodstuffs and misc odds-n-ends, maybe even music and gift cards, but not from a high volume of book sales.

Bookstores have a lot of advantages over public libraries. Many libraries don't have many brand-spanking-new titles, and if they do they're tied up by patrons for months. The hours for public libraries (ignoring university stacks) generally suck. Many don't have free wireless, though that's rapidly changing. Most don't have, or allow the consumption of, food.

After some time, the store could sell off heavily discounted, gently-used copies that patrons thumbed through while sipping coffee and facebooking during their lunch hour.

I understand that book stores must mark up books to make a reasonable profit (at least, that's the benefit of the doubt I give them), but the markup is simply horrible. I once shopped around online for a set of books I wanted, found the best deal (think it was Amazon or maybe Wal Mart), printed it out, and took it to the nearest Barnes and Noble. I don't recall the price difference, but it was quite a bit. I wanted the books that day, so I snagged a sales droid and proposed they give me a price half-way between their price and the one on the printout. She looked at me like I was a moron, and curtly said they couldn't do that. So I kindly wished her a good day, walked out the door, and had the books delivered to my door a few days later.

I find it hard to believe that large chains must be so inflexible in their retail pricing. However, if they don't lower their prices, I won't shed a single tear when they go under.

mquander2• 16 years ago

I've often wondered about that too. My hypothesis is that there's still a large contingent of tech-shy readers who are scared of the Internet, but who really want to get their favorite author's latest material, so they're happy to pay whatever price as long as it's similar to what they've paid in the past.

brianbreslin• 16 years ago

interesting idea IF (big IF) the average book reader was as much of an early adopter as the average HN reader/technophile w/a kindle. There are still millions of people who rely on printed books. Kindles may be selling well, but not as well as we'd like to think. What about people shifting their book buying to places like walmart and target where they get cheaper prices and only sift through the top 100 books out?

I read more on my ipad now than I do books, but still buy physical books from time to time. There are lots of situations where I can't use a digital reader (the beach for instance).

but the author's idea could work, in 2020. In the meantime how does the store support their costs and leases on physical spaces off of ever declining physical good sales?

I'd like to see bookstores turn more into community (for profit) spaces. Teach stuff, sell more coffee around these workshops/gatherings.

billswift• 16 years ago

Anyone who gets the majority of their books on Kindle has some pretty shallow reading habits. I have about 4000 nonfiction books, and at least 60 percent of them are not even available for Kindle. And from the descriptions of Kindle's graphics, at least half of the remainder would be a waste to get on Kindle.

gamble• 16 years ago

For me, the chain bookstores are just a place to get a book when I don't want to wait for shipping. The only other store I visit is a local independent, which only stocks titles that the staff recommends. They're a great place to go if I want to read something recommended by people with taste. I don't go there very often, though. There are so many good books available, what I lack is time to read them all, not good recommendations.

I'm not sure how either gets by if ebooks really take off. The Internet is ultimately a better solution for recommending books and delivering them. They could turn themselves into coffee shops, as the article suggests, but at that point why wouldn't I just go to a good coffee shop?

kitcar• 16 years ago

Bookstores don't pay for their books until they're sold, and they return the ones that aren't - so yes, they do have high overhead in terms of square footage / labour, but don't necessarily have the same inventory issue that other retailer operations to.

A more interesting question to ponder would be at what point in time (if ever) will it stop making sense for a publisher to print books and send them to bookstores? My guess is for niche publishers this has already happened, and it will never happen to the mass-books - it's the middle guys who will have to make the call sometime in the coming years...

mkramlich• 16 years ago

until fresh hot coffee can be downloaded over the Internet I think Starbucks has a brighter future than B&N.

I've sometimes thought B&N should turn into something closer to a cross between Starbucks and a library. Maybe make them members-only, so help filter the demographic that walks in.

The Future of Bookstores: Lead-Gen, not Dead Trees

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