Livres Ancients Livres Modernes

There used to be a category of retail for books at UK Companies House. There is however one for, newspapers, stationary, magazine and other, but no longer books. We also read that the UK’s Bookseller Association claim today that some 25% of independent bookshops have gone out of business in the last 5 years and we find ourselves reminded about the sign over the door of that old bookstore of Emile Raoust & Co. in Lillie that now sells mobiles.

Every action has a consequence and impact and the book market is no different. What would you think is the consequence of:

• Supermarkets being incentivised to shift volume and the likes of Asda selling shelves of books for a £1 each and cheaper than they sell greeting cards
• Chains demanding tiered incentives to merely place titles in windows and catalogues on sale or return terms
• The suicidal discounting of best sellers and new titles where consumer demand is a given
• The ‘safe’ and cosy sale or return safety net, were there is no or low risk buying and shelf space is effectively rented on consignment
• The spread of ‘white label’ and catalogue internet offers, where everyone has everything, only the brand label and template changes and the seller is actually someone else.
• The breakdown in the difference between bargain and full price titles, where all to often even the best sellers are skimmed or offered to other channels before the ink has dried.

When we first stepped into the book publishing marketplace, we found it crowed, overly complex and some would suggest very adversarial compared to other markets. There was not so much a blame culture, as much as a lack of communication and understanding of others. It was as if everyone thought the other’s job was simple and the book world revolved around them. Even today, some fail to realise that there are only two people that matter, the creator/author and the consumer, and that everyone else has to earn their place in between by adding real value.

Today we now have publishers becoming retailers, retailers becoming publishers, agents becoming publishers, authors doing it themselves, wholesalers and aggregators borrowing brands to sell through white label stores and libraries being scanned.

Bookselling is about what it says on the tin – selling books. Bookselling is not easy nor is it about being a super franchise shop for publishers of new books, it’s about selling books; new, old, used, remaindered, back list, specialist whatever. Despite what Companies House may think book retailing will survive but will be different and will continue to be heavily impacted by others and its own actions.

There is no divine right to bookselling and we must ask if today’s news is really surprising, or whether it’s only alarming in that it didn’t happened sooner. Perhaps Companies House spotted something before the trade.

Bookselling Now Faces the Need to Change

The BBC recently ran a series of programmes which brought home the changes in High Street retail and how retailers have had to adapt to cultural, competitive and economic changes over the ages. It is easy to now see the next big step change taking place today, as Internet shopping grows and increasingly grabs the consumer and the cash. This is a very real challenge to bookshops who find they are facing a similar changing landscape to that which faced the High street baker, butcher and greengrocer when the supermarkets stepped up their game. They always misguidedly believed that it was the tactile nature of the business that guaranteed their survival. Unfortunately that is no longer the case.

They now not only have the Internet, which many have entered too late, or simply failed to realistically grapple with, they have a digital explosion, that to date, they have they thought wasn’t their business and to make matters worse they now find themselves competing with supermarkets who are wanting to cream off the volume traffic. Many small grocery retailers survived the supermarket explosion, but in doing so, had to also step up their game and realise that there was no divine right to retail. .

Some argue that the ones that will suffer most are the chains and it is clear that they are suffering. However it would be very arrogant to presume that the slack will be merely taken up by the independents, it won't. Booksellers need to focus on what it says over the door and sell books, used, new, classics, remainders and not just continue to be hoodwinked into believing that the consumer only wants the latest release.

It’s interesting that the only clear beneficiary from the demise of Borders was Kobo who had effectively used the brand to capture the digital footfall and when Borders stumbled into Chapter 11 still continued their business as usual with the customers Borders had effectively given them. Overdrive have built a strong and expanding library business on the back of the library community’s inability to build their own service. There are a number of aggregated ‘white label’ offers but few co-operative ones and it’s easy to hand over customers and business as an affiliate but its hard to get them back once change happens.

It is always important to own both the brand and the customer and not merely hand them over and the future to others. Many say it is impossible to compete and see doors as closed.However it is these players who will loose long term.

It is not all doom and gloom on the High Street and neither is the super Highway paved in gold. There are many positives and shoots of new opportunities and the only certainty is the tomorrow will be very different from today and learning to adapt to change is the key.

Would You Buy an eBook Reader From This Man? Part 2

Today we have the news that Dixons' stores are to join John Lewis in selling Amazon's Kindle e-book reader in the UK. Dixons will sell Kindles through PC World and Currys outlets and not online. The price will be the same whoever you buy a Kindle from with the Wi-Fi model being £111 and the 3G-equipped version £152. To us this sounds a very logical step by Amazon in selling through trusted and experienced outlets trained to sell technology and spreads the Amazon offer onto the High Street.

So we found ourselves in central London and thought we would check out what the three major book chains were doing in-store in their premier outlets with ebooks and ereaders.

Foyles, Charring Cross Road


There was no reference to ebooks, digital or ereaders on the store directory, but given the placement of their information desk, we went straight there to enquire if they sold ereaders. A very pleasant lady explained, ‘We don’t have any in store but sell them online through our web site.’ When we then asked why and said we thought they sold them in store, she disclosed, ‘We used to sell them but they just didn’t pay their way and where a security problem.’

We left wondering why they didn’t take our name for someone to call us, or offered us some flyer explaining why we should go to their web site and if they were serious about ebooks. The lady was helpful but the store was clearly saying ‘Not sold here!’

Blackwell’s, Charring Cross Road


We crossed the road in search of the elusive ereader. Blackwells again were without any signage or reference to ebooks or readers. So we went passed the stationary, the umbrellas and book cradles, to the information desk. Yes they sold ereaders in store, but not the Sony and did not have a display area. ‘Did we want to see one?’ The assistant went off to a staff area and returned with two boxes containing Elonex readers which were still wrapped in their covers. The lack of knowledge on what they did, or didn’t do, was embarrassing and misleading. He pointed out they played epub files ‘which can be bought from anywhere’ and when pressed this even included Amazon! We pointed out that these were LCD and not eInk screens and it was if we were talking a foreign language. They did have some POS material on a stand on the desk, which he read out loud as if we were a child.

Again he didn’t take or even ask for our details so an expert could help us and allowed a potential £100 sale to just walk away.

Waterstones, Picadilly


We entered the flagship store expecting so much, but soon understood that our previous experience was clearly not an exception, but probably the norm. Again no signage or reference on the extensive directory, but we knew where to go and headed straight to the bank of checkouts, past the information desk that was busy and sure enough we found the same bolted down display and POS we had seen on Bath. This had just four units and two dictionary type gadgets.

We hovered, we started to play with the devices, but two of which appeared to be frozen. We looked around for help, but not an assistant in sight and the two on the checkouts were busy serving customers. We decided to go back and ask for help at the information desk and the lady suggested we ask the checkout operators. We pointed out that they were busy, so she offered to come and help, but explained she knew little about the devices. Bless her, she did try to read out the limited POS and clearly was out of her depth. When we asked about the POS pricing over the shelf which offered a ‘get VAT back’ price and quoted the net price and the VAT back, she had to ask the checkout operator. They said that the offer was an old one that finished at Christmas and the VAT back was done by Sony. We hid our amazement that they openly had misleading and out of date pricing on display and clarified that we had to add the two elements together to get the price! The two Sony readers were stickered as ‘out of stock,’and when we asked about the apparent stock in boxes under the shelf, were told those were all empty and should have been removed. Their admission, not ours!

The checkout assistant took over our enquiry and the information assistant went back to her station. The second assistant knew a little more but it was a little. She recommended the top of the range Sony because 'it does more than just reading and can play MP3 files'. When we asked what the difference between the iRiver and the Sony was she quoted number of files and battery life as two major differentiators. We said why the number of files matters as we don’t expect to buy and read 1.000 let alone 2,000 ebooks! We asked about the battery life which she said was based on page turns and we had to point out that the limited POS next to the device said that the iRiver could in fact do 1,000 more page turns than the Sony. She pointed out the Sony reader had 12 dictionaries included, which nearly prompted us to ask if she always carried a dictionary around when she read a book?

She did try very hard to sell us a Sony top of range ereader. However when we asked why it was in landscape and could we see it displayed in portrait like the cheaper reader she was unable to change the setting and even navigate the basic features.

We asked when the Sony devices would be back in stock and she went off to check. She quickly returned to say that didn’t have any on order, but there appeared to be stock in another store if we were interested and she could ring them. We suggested we needed to think about it and despite spending time with us and obviously keen to sell us the top of range Sony she failed once again to even ask let alone capture even the basic customer details.

As we were leaving she offered a small flyer stating it would tell us more about the devices. The flyer was in our opinion a waste of paper except it did give a 0845 telephone number where we could get help. Now why didn’t she at least tell us that?

The eQuestion we ask

When Amazon is selling its devices through technology and trusted retailers, why are these booksellers not making the effort to train staff, provide informative and accessible literature, capture interest and at least appear serious about digital? Would we buy any ereader from these stores today - no. How are they going to build a digital business when they clearly are sending out at times misleading and disinteresting vibes in-store? Books are books be they digital physical, audio, print on demand, front list, back list used etc.

Ironically, we wrote this piece on the very day the BA (Booksellers Association) emailed a newsletter to all their members provide them with sound advice on a retail strategy to sell ebooks.

We also suggest that bookshops watch Mary Portas's 'Secret Shopper' that was broadcast tonight channel 4 and take on-board some of the sound advice she gave mobile phone sellers .