Bookshops could charge for browsing

[crich70]

Originally Posted by ApK

Usually in clubs with a performer of some sort. You pay just to enter whether you buy food and drink or not.
There is also the "two drink minimum" where you will be required to buy two drinks whether you want/drink them or not.

ApK

Yes but they have to pay the performers and pay bills for the food and drink in particular. With stores it's different as they aren't limited in what they sell as much as a club would be. Also how many clubs have a steak for $800.00 + bucks? Stores can have a wide variety of products at different prices & bookstores are like that as well in that they have different prices for hard cover and paperback and sometimes have other things like coffee for sale so you can read and have coffee at the same time. Presumably after having purchased the book you read of course. And clerks in stores have a set salary and working hours so things aren't as expensive as if they were having different acts (performers) like in a club.

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by ApK

Usually in clubs with a performer of some sort. You pay just to enter whether you buy food and drink or not.
There is also the "two drink minimum" where you will be required to buy two drinks whether you want/drink them or not. ApK

Sometimes the performers or entertainment in a club or bar is the customers themselves. i.e. there is a dance floor where attractive women dance, or they just sit or stand and look great.
The greatest entertainment a bar can offer is when a tipsy young nubile woman scrambles up on the bar itself and dances and maybe even plays at striptease.

Men want to be in places like that. Men will travel far and pay much to be in places like that.

Therefore women get in free at various times or all times. Men are charged all the time.
Likewise the bar may offer free drinks at certain times but only certain fruity, sweet drinks with dumb names. Women love these drinks and they are free. A real man couldn't drink one, or wouldn't be seen drinking one.

Hawkers may go out to the streets around the bar and give out complimentary passes to the type people they want to come to the bar.

Or college kids might get passes at certain times.

Patrons that spend a lot of money might get a complimentary pass for next time.

So much about bars.

The real question here is what has been the experience of bookstores that charge browsing fees. Is traffic up? Are sales up.

[din155]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

there is a dance floor where attractive women dance, or they just sit or stand and look great. The greatest entertainment a bar can offer is when a tipsy young nubile woman scrambles up on the bar itself and dances and maybe even plays at striptease.

Aaah..Now do that in a bookstore and I might pay for the entry

[ApK]

Originally Posted by din155

Aaah..Now do that in a bookstore and I might pay for the entry

Hmm...forget Starbucks. Maybe bookstores should include a Hooters...there is some real opportunity here for creative ways to make a showroom profitable in the face of Internet competition...

[taustin]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

''HarperCollins c.e.o. Victoria Barnsley has said the idea of the bookshop as a book club, charging for browsing, is "not that insane",

Yes, actually, it is. The real threat to books stores as an industry is people who say things like that.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Ekaros

Only if the fee would be waived if you bought something...

That means that nobody goes in to book stores unless they already know what they want. Zero impulse buys. That'll kill an outright majority of their business. This is a suicidally stupid idea.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by mediax

All that will do is hasten the demise that bookshops fear.

I buy e-books almost exclusively, but still visit bookshops regularly and occasionally make unplanned purchases. If they charged for admission, I certainly wouldn't visit and the bookshop would lose out on even the occasional purchases I do make.

I've never understood why bookshops (the chain retailers, at least) haven't come up with some business model whereby they download ebooks for you - either direct to your reader or to a memory card/stick (the latter would no doubt raise DRM issues). I'm perfectly capable of downloading my own books, but I'd still take advantage of that sort of facility if I saw a book I fancied in a bookshop.

Like the way Barnes & Noble offers free wifi in their stores? Even offers reading on many titles as an equivalent to browsing?

[taustin]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Browsing in a bookshop and then buying online strikes me as being fundamentally dishonest. If you browse in a shop, buy in that shop. If you don't, the shop isn't going to be there much longer.

I did that with my camera, and I paid a couple hundred bucks more for it than I would have on Amazon. The reason being, there is an excellent local camera shop who knew a hell of a lot more about cameras than I ever will, and they took a couple of hours selling me something cheaper than what I went in for, that was much better suited to my needs. (And I ended up spending as much anyway, with a greatly upgraded lens.)

Unfortunately, there isn't a book store in the world that's going to give me meaningful advice on what books to buy, and I doubt I'm unique.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by din155

Aaah..Now do that in a bookstore and I might pay for the entry

And we call call this magical place The Naughty Librarian.

[BWinmill]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Browsing in a bookshop and then buying online strikes me as being fundamentally dishonest. If you browse in a shop, buy in that shop. If you don't, the shop isn't going to be there much longer.

It's called comparison shopping. People have been doing it for generations. In the past information garnered from such experiences would permit a process called bargaining. Unfortunately, a lot of people have dismissed the idea of being informed consumers in favour of the misplaced notion of customer loyalty. (Very few people shop at places that would return that loyalty.)

So no, I don't see the process as dishonest.

Businesses need to look at what they're doing wrong. I've heard a theory about the reckoning happening with electronic retailers in Canada. For the non-Canucks: big box stores like Future Shop and Best Buy are shutting down stores, while small retailers like The Source (nee Radio Shack) are expanding. Now the theory goes that the big box stores are too big to sustain themselves due to rent and staffing costs. In other words, they are dinosaurs who could only exist while the food supply was plentiful. But it isn't the case anymore, so they are suffering while other businesses are taking their place (both online and brick and mortar).

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's impractical to suggest that a "bricks and mortar" shop can match the prices of an online bookshop, which has none of the overheads that the B&M shop incurs. You're being charged extra for the extras - the physical browsing experience - that the physical shop offers you.

I like to drink coffee in bookshops and browse. I fell that the expensive coffee is paying for my browsing. But if bookshops had convenient seats to sit and read then I could definitely pay som club membership to get access to coffee shop, reading space and browsing possibilities.

[Ravensknight]

I am all for it. Seen WAY to many people sitting on the freaking floor reading a book, then put it back when they are done.
And now it is all grubby and dirty and yucky.

Keep the riff-raff out I say!

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

I am all for it. Seen WAY to many people sitting on the freaking floor reading a book, then put it back when they are done.
And now it is all grubby and dirty and yucky.

Keep the riff-raff out I say!

I visited my uncle in Canada a few years back. On a Sunday we went to his local bookstore and sat in comfortable chairs reading their books and drinking coffee. When we left, he folded the corner of the page he was on down and replaced the book. I thought that was a bit cheeky!

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by BWinmill

It's called comparison shopping. People have been doing it for generations. In the past information garnered from such experiences would permit a process called bargaining. Unfortunately, a lot of people have dismissed the idea of being informed consumers in favour of the misplaced notion of customer loyalty. (Very few people shop at places that would return that loyalty.)

So no, I don't see the process as dishonest.

Businesses need to look at what they're doing wrong. I've heard a theory about the reckoning happening with electronic retailers in Canada. For the non-Canucks: big box stores like Future Shop and Best Buy are shutting down stores, while small retailers like The Source (nee Radio Shack) are expanding. Now the theory goes that the big box stores are too big to sustain themselves due to rent and staffing costs. In other words, they are dinosaurs who could only exist while the food supply was plentiful. But it isn't the case anymore, so they are suffering while other businesses are taking their place (both online and brick and mortar).

I have to agree, to suggest there's anything morally wrong about browsing in-store and then buying online is ridiculous.

Am I acting "dishonestly" when I browse Amazon's reviews but then buy an ebook at Kobo's store because I can use a discount code? Does this apply between physical stores? Is it morally wrong for me to test drive a car at one dealership and then buy the same type of car from another dealership that offers me a better price? Or am I morally obligated to spend more money at the store I initially browsed at?

If bookstores can't compete for the finite dollars of sophisticated customers, then that's too bad for them but it's not dishonest, unethical or immoral. Bookstore don't need this HarryT's past-looking, protectionist sentiment, they need to offer products and services that customers actually want to buy from them.

Equating a personal choice to buy from a physical store to proper moral conduct marks a notable low-point in arguments on Mobileread. I can barely express my incredulity at the idea that supporting a failing business model is the "moral" path.

[Ravensknight]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

When we left, he folded the corner of the page he was on down and replaced the book. I thought that was a bit cheeky!

And there is a book I will never buy now, as it is extremely used. Which just cost the store money.

If I'm going to pay full price for a book, it had better be brand spanking new...