Quote:
Originally Posted by tomsem
The internet. The last used book store in our town was selling more on the internet than via store traffic, and it finally closed. I think used book sales remain robust on the internet (probably at amazon.com), but smaller sellers cannot compete (‘like new’ books can sell for as little as $0.01 plus shipping, not sure how that works).
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Just as an example from another sales category, the coffee store that I've been using for the last 20 years or so closed it's store front about 15 years ago and has been operating purely as an internet store since then. You can actually order and drive down to the warehouse and pick your order up, but I always just have it delivered. The three main expenses for a store is real estate, labor and inventory. If you don't have to worry about customers stopping by, then real estate and labor go down a lot.