Quote:
Originally Posted by rhadin
Now, many years later it would make no sense to return to the local store to buy books because the local store either doesn't have the book I want in stock or won't sell it to me for the online price if the online price is less. There is no advantage to going to the local store.
None of the things that you mention would be an incentive to go to the local store and buy. Nowadays, thanks to Amazon, price is what matters.
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Catalog size matters.
That is how Borders and B&N decimated the standalones and it's how Amazon has been taking the market away from B&N.
There is still a B&M market for frontlist Everywhere Books--it's how Hudson and the smaller Newsstands survive--but a lot of readers have adapted to the expanded catalogs of online and they happen to be the center of gravity of the market. For those readers limited catalog sizes won't do.
But for casual readers, there is still a market.
Problem is, casual readers aren't typically "showroom trollers" roaming the aisles for any book that catches their eyes but more likely to be guided missiles looking for the hot, popular book of the day.
That is why bigger loses to online but smaller survives. Smaller is cheaper and better fitted to what the remaining B&M shoppers seek. That is why Daunt placed Waterstones on the small hyperlocal side: existing market. He wasn't exactly looking to grow the market, just concentrate the remaining traffic into *his* stores.
And that is why I suspect any B&N reconnaissance is more likely to come at the expense of the non-chain stores than the newsstands or online. People have learned new habits and getting them to change back is going to be a hard wall to climb.