Here is a bookstore owner's nightmare. Customer walks in; browses around; has grand old time in this temple of knowledge; peruses a book that costs $27; takes out Kindle and orders it for $17, right there in front of your nose, using your wi-fi connection. Aaagh!
You wake up sweating at 3:00 in the morning.
Have you noticed all of those best-seller books stacked up at the front of your local bookstore? Did the retailer buy them hoping to sell them all? Of course not. They are relying on a variant of the age-old practice of "sale or return." Publisher have agreed to take back unsold ones for credit. As this article on Bloomberg states:
"Returns date back to the Depression, when publishers implemented the practice as a way to ensure that bookstores would continue stocking new books."
Now that we are in a major recession, or micro-depression, or whatever we're calling it these days, surely this practice will continue. Well, probably not. Digitization, whether via e-book or print on demand, makes it unnecessary. And publishers simply cannot sustain it. Approximately 25% of their books are being returned. Think of what that does to their profit margins.
How can retailers survive if they have to decide what to buy based on their forecast of what will sell? The answer is, they can't. No one can forecast fickle consumer taste. With retailer's profit margins being what they are, one small error could lead to an operation's failure.
But they have to stock their shelves with something, right?
Not necessarily. Have you noticed that bookstores are becoming more like coffee shops and coffee shops are becoming more like bookstores? And that both have wi-fi?
Retail bookstores might look more like community hang-out spots in future, with the following:
- Good (but expensive) coffee and snacks,
- Free wi-fi,
- A few best-selling books and DVDs (under the sale or return policy),
- A way for patrons to order any book in the universe, while taking a cut of the transaction.
This last possibility is not hard to imagine. The customer could have the book delivered to the bookstore if they will be passing by again soon or, for a little extra (plus guilt for the bigger carbon footprint), their home.
These coffee shop/bookstores could even host virtual "Meet the author" sessions on a big screen, with back-channel chats going on via Twitter. And they could host book clubs for both face-to-face meetings and online gatherings.
If the "local printer" model becomes a reality, book delivery would be immediate. We can even imagine digital printers setting up shop in the back of coffee shop/bookstores?
That sounds like fun for readers, authors, and store owners. But for students and the unemployed, the walk to the local library seems all the shorter.
And what about big-box bookstores in malls? Nope. Sell your commercial real estate and big-box retailer stock. That will get ugly.
Article by Bernard Lunn envisions (albeit not a full business plan) the future bookstore.
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