Does competition help or hurt sellers of used books?
If you ran the only used bookstore in town, how would you feel if another one opened for business this summer? That's exactly what's happening in Omaha, Nebraska. According to this article, the bookstore owners both believe that having two used bookstores in town will generate more than double the sales volume of the original store. In other words, both of them will supposedly benefit from the competition.Unlike what often happens when stores selling new books move into a market — as when Barnes & Noble and Borders entered the Omaha market and essentially crushed a variety of bookstores — used-book stores can help one another, Siegel said.I'm not saying this is impossible, but I'd predict one thing: If each store doesn't have strong walk-in traffic and a brisk trade over the Internet, at least one store will be out of business within three years.
"The more there are, the better it is, because more book people coming through an area will say, 'Gee, it pays to stop,'" even if they're coming from out of town, she said.
One bookseller quoted in the story says:
A lot of people have closed their doors in this business and done the Internet. I really enjoy meeting people and talking to them about books or whatever. . . . Theoretically we'd do better if we closed our door and just put everything online. And we'd spend our days answering e-mails and shipping books.
That's not how I want to spend my life.
Labels: bookstores
posted by Steve Weber at 6/26/2007
5 Comments:
Having both the Antiquarium and Jackson Street Booksellers in the old market area of Omaha has given me more reason to stop at the old market when I do visit Omaha once or twice a year. Now that the Antiquarium is moving to Brownville I might consider making a side trip if there are also other book stores there to visit. On the other hand, I'll have much less reason to go down to the old market.
I expect that the owner of the Antiquarium will be picking up a lot of cash by selling his valuable downtown property and moving out of town.
I think the Omaha stores will benefit each other. In a town like that, it gives people more of a reason to go to the shopping district -- it's more of an "event" rather than a visit to a particular store.
I've worked at used bookstores but now sell exclusively online. There are giant "holes" in the online trade though -- mainly the ability to get more books without having to find other resellers for them, and the ability to buy and sell stuff like Crime and Punishment, which might sell on Amazon for 89 cents but would go for $4.95 at a brick-and-mortar store. As I consider opening an actual store, I see it more as a giant walk-in advertisement that WE BUY BOOKS, and whatever you sell out of the store pays for that ad.
Thinking about it this way, another store in the area can only HELP you sell more used stock out of the store, as more people come to the area for books, CDs, gifts, etc. But you HAVE to be online, and you have to make the internet your focus. These people are crazy if they want to operate a bookstore today without being online.
It's just that having a brick-and-mortar helps you get much better inventory on a daily basis... and to think, for once, people actually bring it to you!
Having watched used book stores come and go over the past 30 years in my area, I find it hard to believe that mnay people are makinga living at this. I sell online only and doubt that anybody could make a living at a commercial location here. Rents and taxes are just too high, not to mention governmental paperwork once you start paying wages and being open to the public.
NWBookman (Spanaway, WA)
My answer would be: Hay-on-Wye in Powys, better known to bibliophiles as the book capital of the UK.
More CAN be better. A mecca, instead of a drive in isolation to a potentially closed for those hours establishment. We have this in an adjoining city. Two on the same block, both with different specialties (one generalist in mind, the other mostly special areas/antiquarian). I'd go there first before I drove to the other three in that city.
Debbie K.
Last summer as I was exploring going into the used book business I visited a town in southern VA that had 5 used bookstores within walking distance of each other in the downtown area, all with their own speciality.
One of the store owners had constant foot traffic and sales during the time I was talking with him.
We had an interesting chat as I told him I was exploring going into the used book business. He invited me to move there and open a B&M store and even offered to help me set it up and get it going.
I guess we share a similar philosophy, in that there is plenty for everyone. He definitely felt that the more used bookstores in the area the better.
Since then 2 of the stores have gone out of business. One was not on the web and I don't know about the other one.
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