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rkw · 02-14-2013, 05:26 PM

Prior to the advent of the "Big Box" bookstore, when I was a kid, bookstores were about efficiency with books stacked floor to ceiling front to back. Then came the analog of today's big-box stores, only for books. There larger corporate cut-throat priced with the same cut-throat business practices drove small friendly neighborhood shops out of business depriving some of a livelihood that may have been handed down for a generation or two. The big-box bookshops were cold, indifferent and pretty much totally lacking in knowledge about any of the sections in the store. It was buy cheap, play low wages and let the customers either buy what was offered or sod-off.

Seems this has clearly gone full circle. Those same mega-stores are now about to be squashed. In many cases it is because the stores themselves are portraits to waste and excess. Amazing amounts of square footage is squandered to offer the illusion of boutique exclusivity...image over substance. They now try to sell an image rather than what those old smaller shops offered, knowledge, quality and personal service. The stores not only are monuments to wasted space but typically located in areas with the highest cost per sq. ft. in a location. Far as I am concerned it is adapt or die, the same thing they did to where the real personal service and quality once existed, the good ol' Mom-n-Pop Book Shoppe...screw B&N, Waldens, or whoever if they can't adjust the factors now driving them into the pavement under the jack-booted-demand of the shareholder. Welcome to the club of failing to adapt.

Basically I am using the absurd extension to illustrate what is happening today is the same thing they began dishing out some 20-30yrs ago, here in the US anyway. Nothing will change until business, well those with stockholders anyway, get past the current pyramid scheme of the need for profits to accelerate year-over-year which is pretty much a geometric growth impossible to sustain longer term inherently doomed to collapse under it's own weight. That is the aspect of their model putting on the pressure which is taught in the cookie-cutter "business" schools where they all learn the same model as a one-size-fits-all thing.

I love book shops. I visit them often but mostly for reference materials for business. However I need to point out that the references I buy are for too small of a market to entice book stores, of any size, to stock them. So for 3-4 decades those in the business have spent our thousands per year directly with the publishers who, btw, offer us all a 40% discount off the cover price with a trivial minimum order of about $100. That long predates anything web related. Oh, and when I sold those references at conventions or other field related events I was paying between 30%-40% of cover then offered them for sale to the public at a 20% discount of the cover price...and my overhead for these events has HUGE compared to B&M stores. Often I spent more for a week than stores did for a month. Thing was I offered a FULL inventory as well as bringing my store to the very demographic who would go to a B&M for example to find a dozen titles where I would have pretty much all titles in a given category. It was extremely lucrative for me, in fact, promoters began to bid on my presence at their events as well as promoting me being there in promo materials. Eventually the market dried up so did my small business but I got out when it was time...that is how it works. It was fun but it was over...welcome to my world Big-Box-Booksellers.

Today it is the website sellers who offer everything I once did save the hands-on access. By this time people know the quality and are comfy with spending a few hundred bucks sight unseen. I had many people, who could order direct use my displays to see if they wanted to buy a book direct from the publishers. I told them sure why not I had zero problem with it, I gave them a card to use as a referral where that particular publisher gave me a small referral fee or credit to my account. Lost a sale but still found a way to grab a small piece of the pie. I sure know I would never have tried to charge my customers a fee to look at books...better a store with people in it than one with nobody wandering the isles.

02-14-2013, 05:26 PM	#157
rkw Old & Busted Hotness Posts: 182 Karma: 1290260 Join Date: Apr 2012 Device: Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0,Asus TF700T, K1-2-3-Fire	Prior to the advent of the "Big Box" bookstore, when I was a kid, bookstores were about efficiency with books stacked floor to ceiling front to back. Then came the analog of today's big-box stores, only for books. There larger corporate cut-throat priced with the same cut-throat business practices drove small friendly neighborhood shops out of business depriving some of a livelihood that may have been handed down for a generation or two. The big-box bookshops were cold, indifferent and pretty much totally lacking in knowledge about any of the sections in the store. It was buy cheap, play low wages and let the customers either buy what was offered or sod-off. Seems this has clearly gone full circle. Those same mega-stores are now about to be squashed. In many cases it is because the stores themselves are portraits to waste and excess. Amazing amounts of square footage is squandered to offer the illusion of boutique exclusivity...image over substance. They now try to sell an image rather than what those old smaller shops offered, knowledge, quality and personal service. The stores not only are monuments to wasted space but typically located in areas with the highest cost per sq. ft. in a location. Far as I am concerned it is adapt or die, the same thing they did to where the real personal service and quality once existed, the good ol' Mom-n-Pop Book Shoppe...screw B&N, Waldens, or whoever if they can't adjust the factors now driving them into the pavement under the jack-booted-demand of the shareholder. Welcome to the club of failing to adapt. Basically I am using the absurd extension to illustrate what is happening today is the same thing they began dishing out some 20-30yrs ago, here in the US anyway. Nothing will change until business, well those with stockholders anyway, get past the current pyramid scheme of the need for profits to accelerate year-over-year which is pretty much a geometric growth impossible to sustain longer term inherently doomed to collapse under it's own weight. That is the aspect of their model putting on the pressure which is taught in the cookie-cutter "business" schools where they all learn the same model as a one-size-fits-all thing. I love book shops. I visit them often but mostly for reference materials for business. However I need to point out that the references I buy are for too small of a market to entice book stores, of any size, to stock them. So for 3-4 decades those in the business have spent our thousands per year directly with the publishers who, btw, offer us all a 40% discount off the cover price with a trivial minimum order of about $100. That long predates anything web related. Oh, and when I sold those references at conventions or other field related events I was paying between 30%-40% of cover then offered them for sale to the public at a 20% discount of the cover price...and my overhead for these events has HUGE compared to B&M stores. Often I spent more for a week than stores did for a month. Thing was I offered a FULL inventory as well as bringing my store to the very demographic who would go to a B&M for example to find a dozen titles where I would have pretty much all titles in a given category. It was extremely lucrative for me, in fact, promoters began to bid on my presence at their events as well as promoting me being there in promo materials. Eventually the market dried up so did my small business but I got out when it was time...that is how it works. It was fun but it was over...welcome to my world Big-Box-Booksellers. Today it is the website sellers who offer everything I once did save the hands-on access. By this time people know the quality and are comfy with spending a few hundred bucks sight unseen. I had many people, who could order direct use my displays to see if they wanted to buy a book direct from the publishers. I told them sure why not I had zero problem with it, I gave them a card to use as a referral where that particular publisher gave me a small referral fee or credit to my account. Lost a sale but still found a way to grab a small piece of the pie. I sure know I would never have tried to charge my customers a fee to look at books...better a store with people in it than one with nobody wandering the isles.