Our first, instinctual response might be – No, of course not.
Surely, there’s nothing wrong with browsing in a physical book store and then buying at Amazon or B&N.
However, the answer is different depending on what perspective you take.
Perspectives on Bookstore Browsing and Buying
The Local Bookstore’s Perspective
Local bookstores feel they provide certain benefits i.e.
- A comfortable environment.
- The Personal touch and customer service.
- Good knowledge of books and advice.
- Physical books to browse.
- A place to spend sometime around books and readers.
People arrive, partake of the facilities, and often stroll out and buy books online at cheaper prices.
Not exactly an ideal scenario for the bookstore.
The Shopper and Window Shopper Perspectives
Let’s break it up into three categories of shoppers -
- Those who buy mostly from their local bookstore.
- Those who buy once in a while.
- Those who never buy.
For the latter two categories they probably feel -
- Local book stores are cool but the prices just aren’t good enough.
- It’s OK to use the facilities without buying books. OR
- It’s OK to buy a book once in a while – that should be enough to sustain local bookstores.
If people never buy books then local bookstores obviously die out.
However, what if people buy ‘once in a while’ – Is that enough to sustain physical bookstores?
Once in a while buyers might not be enough
There are no hard statistics on this. However, given that -
- A lot of people claim to buy books at their local bookstore once in a while.
- Local bookstores are struggling.
It’s not too unreasonable to say that ‘once in a while’ buyers aren’t working out for local bookstores. They need to get people to do most of their buying from the local bookstore – 25% just isn’t good enough.
The only way to do that is to provide enough value to make in-store purchases very compelling to users.
This brings up related questions -
- What value do users think local bookstores provide?
- Do users feel they should buy at local bookstores in return?
- At what point of additional value will browsers turn into buyers?
Is it that people will always browse and not buy?
We know that local bookstores are struggling despite the fact that their value proposition has remained stable.
Does that mean people are happy to browse local bookstores to death?
- Is it that customers just don’t feel there’s enough value and even though they stroll through the bookstore they don’t feel they get any benefit?
- Will people at some magical level of customer service or some level of value/experience received start buying books?
- Is it that customers feel they get something of value from the store but they don’t feel they ought to buy at the store in return?
Perhaps, no matter how much value they get, people will always choose cheaper books online.
Which brings up the possibility that local bookstores are doomed no matter what they do.
Is Browsing without Buying an accepted practice now?
At some level physical bookstores can never compete with virtual ones -
- Local bookstores have staff costs.
- There’s rent and electricity and store maintenance.
- There is limited range when compared with infinite online stores.
In that situation there’s always going to be a price difference.
Are people unconsciously using a Best of Both Worlds strategy and exploiting local bookstores?
Perhaps it’s perfectly logical for people to feel -
- Let’s go to the store and browse books and enjoy the experience.
- Let’s then come back home and order online and save $3.
It’s simple optimization. Everyone does it at different times in different aspects of life.
It’s not as if the browser owes the store anything.
However, it’s killing local bookstores.
Is this wrong?
Don’t have an answer for this question.
Perhaps the local bookstore doesn’t have the right to expect anything in return for providing you a physical bookstore experience.
However, that experience goes away if local bookstores die out.
People who browse bookstores without buying are the equivalent of people who use up a resource without replenishing it. It’s not until it’s gone that you realize the loss, and then it’s too late.
Do you want local bookstores to stick around?
Because the way things are headed they aren’t really going to.
Convenience and Cheaper Prices are overwhelming whatever desire we might have to keep local bookstores around.
- People buying from local bookstores once in a while isn’t good enough.
- Some portion of people buying from local bookstores isn’t good enough.
As more and more people start optimizing i.e. buying online, buying ebooks, pirating books, and so forth, we will see local bookstores struggle more and more and die out.
It’ll only be in cities with some threshold population size (or in cities with a dedicated group of physical book lovers) that physical book stores will survive.
Where do we stand on people who browse but don’t buy?
Online stores and ebooks have far too many advantages.
- Local bookstores have the bookstore experience.
- Physical books have the touch and feel.
However, how do you compete against ever-lowering prices and super-convenient delivery?
It doesn’t help that some percentage of people maximize by experiencing the bookstore and then buying online.
There’s no right or wrong because there are always a thousand things you can say for or against it. There’s no grounds on which to claim that people who browse but don’t buy are wrong.
However, they are inadvertently killing physical bookstores.
Filed under: books Tagged: | death of bookstores, future of books
I was browsing for Christmas gifts at a local Barnes and Noble. I ended up buying a toy and a DVD but ordering a cookbook from Amazon. I ordered the cookbook from the checkout line at B&N. Even with overnight shipping the book was more than $10 cheaper from Amazon. I would be happy to buy books in person but when the book was less than half of the price on Amazon it is just not worth it.
I think it’s fine. But it depends on what the browsing is about and what the buying is about.
I mostly buy eBooks unless I’m buying a gift. I do go into the local Borders or Barnes and Nobles now and then. This is mostly to check out the industry — which authors are getting placements, and where. Who’s doing a book signing.
I mostly buy music in person if it’s at B&N or Borders when they have listening stations and it’s an obscure artist and I want to have it right away — but the price needs to be right.
With books, I have flipped through a book once or twice and ended up buying it, but this isn’t the same thing in my mind. I generally don’t buy paper books anymore. If I could browse a book at Borders or B&N and then immediately buy online with my Kindle at a reasonable price, I would.
When I bought paper books, I still was pretty loyal to Amazon because it was painful to go for a new release that the local bookstores didn’t have in stock.
But the online experience is really a lot better, so the old joy I used to get from perusing books in person isn’t there — I’d rather read a chapter as a sample somewhere else through the Kindle store and be comfortable eating, drinking or sitting wherever I want.
The old joys are starting to have new equivalents in the online era.
wow – that’s a killer line i’ll be stealing for a post later ->
The old joys are starting to have new equivalents in the online era
I absolutely do think it is wrong (at least for myself), and I will NOT browse a book in a physical bookstore and buy it online. If it’s a book I wouldn’t've bought if I hadn’t seen it in the physical bookstore, the physical bookstore deserves to get the purchase. If it’s cheaper online, well, I should’ve thought of that before browsing physically.
Of course, more and more I buy books based on things like amazon reviews, in which case I buy them from Amazon, or books that are unavailable in the local bookstore. And if I ever get a kindle I’ll probably buy a lot based on their first-chapter previews. In which case the physical bookstores are losing/will lose a lot of my business anyway.
I personally think that it is just stupid to make a hard rule like that. If stores can’t compete then they can’t compete. If it is close then yes I will probably buy it at the Brick and Mortar store for convience, but if it is twice the price?
What about browsing at a library? Would you not buy a book you saw at a library?
Er? Yeah, sure, I didn’t mean to insinuate that other people should abide by MY rules. But yeah, that’s one of my hard rules. Even if it is twice the price. (Now, I often buy at half price online without browsing in a brick-and-mortar first.) I feel like the markup pays for the convenience of physical browsing.
Books I like from libraries I will almost always buy online (the only exception being if I have to have it in my hands Right Now). I certainly don’t feel any debt towards a brick-and-mortar for that one! I’m not sure what you’re driving at?
I’m not sure either – it’s a question whose answer will vary per person.
Thought provoking article. I read a lot of books for myself electronically, but buy a lot of books for my family from local bookstores.
One thing that happens to me in local bookstores that drives me bonkers. When they tell me the book I’m interested in is not in stock, but they can, get this, order it for me…
Oh, yeah. If the bookstore is going to do THAT, they deserve to lose my business…
Unfortunately, it’s just not possible for a brick-and-mortar store to stock every title in the world. Even the biggest stores sometimes just won’t have what you want.
However, I know that at our store, we get in the books we special order for customers within a couple business days with no shipping cost to the customer. The customer can then look at the book and see if it’s something they actually want, and if not, they don’t have to buy it.
I’m not saying you have to order through your local bookstore. But it is a service with its own benefits, and it helps out the folks who are helping you and living in your neighborhood.
“Is Browsing without Buying an accepted practice now?”
When has it ever been an unacceptable practice? Basic store browsing has been de facto for centuries. If the shop thinks they have some valuable service that is not offset by purchases made, they’re more than welcome to charge a cover. I can’t see any store getting customers if an entrance fee is charged, though.
Even considering that some people purchased online after browsing (pre-e-books), it is the bookstore that must remain competitive. If a product is no longer desirable, the company will be weakened or go out of business. This are the same capitalistic principles in which big box bookstores (B&N, Borders) drove small bookstores out of business. The same sorts of complaints were made then (summed up in the movie “You’ve Got Mail”) as you’re making now.
Only governments can subsidize what the people don’t want or won’t pay for.
Maybe the question should be: what can local bookstores do to prevent losing customers?
How do you think they could survive?
(apart from lower prices?)
I have owned an indie bookstore, Village Square Booksellers, in Bellows Falls Vermont, for 9 years. (I had another indie bookstore from 1977-80, and saw the beginning of grocery stores getting into mass market book sales and destroying that “market” and the start of discounters like Crown books.)
My bookstore has about 2500 square feet. We have 80,000 titles on hand, mostly in one’s and two’s. We have a wide selection of books, some out-of-towners call it quirky – as the Buyer dealing with publishers reps, I buy books that I am interested in, as well as books I think my existing customers would be interested in. Bellows Falls has a population of 3500, Town of Rockingham 5000. Yet we have over 6000 in our store’s database- i.e. customers making regular purchases, ordering books. We draw from an area of 50 miles around for events and browsing.
We obviously don’t have every book on hand. During the holiday season we ordered every day, most books showed up the next day. Only a few people refused to order, thinking they’d get the book from one of the larger bookstores about 22 miles away. I even called and had a book held at the other indie one. The smaller indie stores closer to us (13 miles north and south) called to check on titles to send customers our way if they were out & the customer needed it immediately. One even came up and purchased 2 books- one from stock and one I ordered Dec 23rd (they did not have enough books to order).
We don’t seem to get the people who browse, then go out & buy online or at Borders or Wal-Mart. They probably are already driving out of town to shop. I know other indies who have folks who habitually come in & make lists, then leave to buy the books elsewhere. However, if I did notice regular customers making a list with their kids, I offered to set up a Wish List – we keep a box with cards inside, with an ABC index and they happily took a card and added it to the box.
My husband & I discussed the holiday season- it seemed like we had or could easily order everything our customers wanted. Few left in a huff. Only one out-of-towner complained loudly about “going to a better store – one that discounts”.
Our regular customers have frequent buyer cards- $15 for $150 in sales – a 10% discount. We have a large children’s department – kids (toddlers-teens) come in to browse and ask questions about books. We hold events for kids and adults. Our American Girl Club has been going for 7 years, Strategy cards for 8 years, Open Mic Poetry for 9 years.
I decided to change our website in August to an ABA- e-commerce one with searchable database, e-book availability, easy to use calendar. We had a few orders out of town plus local ones to have items held from inventory or books we had to order & hold for them to pick up. We had other customers search our inventory & then e-mailed the order in knowing we had the books on our shelves.
My husband and I do a lot of community service – being on committees (chamber, various community events, local access TV, food hub, building a new rec building, library friends, school projects, planning commission), and employ two part time workers to cover the store 6 of the 7 days we are open. So the community comes in the store to thank us for all of our volunteer work that helps strengthen and enrich the community. I organize the 3rd Friday Art Walk to help the other smaller stores and provide entertainment / night-time shopping hours for our customers. …My husband and I were named co-persons of the year by the chamber in March 2009.
However, the store does not make a profit – we just don’t get enough volume to support the size of the inventory. We did not expect it to when we bought it (it was only 400 sq ft at the time). We do expect it to pay its bills. This month we’ll go through the inventory doing returns. Alan & I have worked for free for 9 years, using investment income and social security to pay OUR bills. Yes – we could cut out the part time workers and work the store ourselves – but would people come in if we didn’t use our organizational skills to run the non-profits? And would we lose our sanity sitting inside all day? (We spent 7 years traveling aboard a sailboat & Dutch barge prior to coming to Bellows Falls in ’99)
I disagree that bricks and mortar stores will only survive in cities. I think Vermont stores will be among the last ones – a strong core of dedicated bookbuyers, with the bookstore as community center model. Each store is completely different, built upon the character of the owners and the character of the community.
P.S. I sold my other bookstore in 1980 when it had started to turn a profit – but unfortunately the new owner killed it by taking out the chairs I had placed throughout the store to encourage browsing, turning off the radio background music, stopped having events, and stopped ordering from individual publishers (better selection, better discount). Yeah I had those things in 1977- long before the big-box stores, long before the internet – in those days we had microfiche of Ingram & Baker & Taylor inventory and had to call in weekly orders. And all of the orders (distributor and publisher) arrived by US Postal Service book rate.
thanks a ton for your comment. it’d be good if indie bookstores prospered.
Pat, your entire post made me smile.
It depends on what your definition of “browse” is…
If you think it means to curl up on that leather chair in the corner by the little gas log fireplace and read a whole book, then leave it in the puddle you made with the water bottle you brought in, and leave the store having bought not even a cup of coffee, then yeah, you are a butthead, and whether you buy the book online or not, it will wind up being sold on Amazon for a penny plus shipping charges.
If you waltz around the store picking up books to preview, say, read the first few pages, turning them with fingers coated with blue goo from the blueberry scones, then waltz out, leaving them to be reshelved or remaindered, then yeah, you are a butthead.
If you pick up three or four books with the intention of buying the one you like most, and you’re respectful of the property of others, then you’ve been a considerate guest of the shopkeeper, and s/he will clean the clock of anyone who dares call you butthead; you’re a customer.
If you have no intention of buying anything when you walk in the door, then travel the few extra miles to that other building.
It’s called a “library”.
I own a small bookstore and this is right on. People come in and browse all the time and buy nothing. The solution for me was to keep the walk-in store ( for now) and create an online store for the local people. I did this about 3 years ago and have sold things all over the world. This year I am going to close the walk-in and leave only a small area open all day,so that local people can order online and pick up when they want.
I find it is much easier and cheaper to market an online store and it takes less of my day.
Jeanie
I’ve worked a lot of places, and right now I’m the events director for an independent bookstore.
I love my job. This is the first job I’ve ever had that I can really say that about.
I could find something else. I’m well-educated. I’m industrious. I’ve got some internships under my belt. But I love books, and I love dealing with people. For every difficult customer I have to appease, I get to meet and talk with 99 other customers who are happy and friendly and love books as much as I do, who are excited to see a new cover or see a new book from their favorite author. I love when someone comes to me looking for a recommendation, and I get to talk to them about what they like, what they’re in the mood for, and then I get to hand them something they’ve never even heard of but that I know they’ll enjoy. I even love when someone comes into the store and says, “There’s this book, and it’s got a blue cover, about armadillo’s or something…” and I know exactly what and where it is, and they look at me like I have just raised the Titanic with my mind.
And everyone I work with? They’re all there because they love to do it too, because they’ve spent more time in libraries and bookstores than is really healthy, and they feel most comfortable there.
A brick and mortar store requires a lot more work than an online retailer. People often say to me that they’d love to have my job and just get to read all day. I would love to have that job too, but I don’t. Someone has to organize, restock, and dust those shelves. Someone has to ring up the sales and move the boxes of books. Someone has to fix the bookshelves and put up the signs and write up the recommendation tags and put up the posters, etc…
Setting up the environment and the experience of a nice, browsable, comfortable bookstore is what we do. It’s a job, and it’s a service job, like waiting or bartending.
Now, I don’t judge anyone who wants to save money. I’m not starving, but I do work at a retail store. My finances don’t have a lot of wiggle-room. And I understand other peoples’ budgets are even tighter. So I can’t say, as some do, that buying on Amazon is immoral. I don’t do it, but I understand it.
But buying at an indie for a few bucks more is like tipping at your local coffee shop. It shows gratitude to a real human being who lives in your neighborhood and who is there to help you out. It’s supporting a company that gives local people jobs they love and gives you an environment you enjoy. I think it’s important. And I buy whatever I can from indies: movies, music, food, etc.
I don’t judge anyone who doesn’t want to spend the extra, just as when I was a bartender, I didn’t judge anyone for not tipping. But I do appreciate it when someone buys a book I recommend or when someone comes to one of our author events and then congratulates me on setting it up afterwards.
And the other side of that coin is that when I set up an event, spend weeks trying to get an author into the store, and finally manage to. And they’re happy to be there, and you’re happy to have them there, and you walk into the signing line and ask them to please sign the cover of your Kindle…Or when you ask me for a recommendation, and I pull down five books for you and tell you about each, and you say, “Oh, that sounds great! How much is it?” and I tell you, and you say, “Well, I’ll probably just go buy it on Amazon”…Or when you’re looking at my shelves, and you have your Nook open to the ordering screen…
I can’t help but take it personally. It’s kind of like going to a local coffee shop, sitting on the couch, talking to the baristas about the weather, reading a magazine, standing up, stretching, and then pulling out a cup from Dunkin Donuts.
I understand frugality. I really do.
But please know what our bookstores mean to those of us who work there, and know what we are doing for you, and be courteous, even if you never buy anything from us.
I’m not much for buying books at big discount stores. Since buying my Kindle the only books that I really buy any more for myself are knitting & crafting books and those usually come from KnitPicks.com. To be honest, I go to B&N and look at the knitting books then order them when KnitPicks has a 40% off sale.
The only things I really buy at B&N any more are a couple of knitting magazines, little gifty items that are usually on sale or clearance and the occasional cup of coffee or shaken iced Tazo tea.
Do I feel guilty for peeking at a few books there and buying online? Nope. I buy my discount card every year (even though it keeps going up in price) and I buy overpriced coffe & snacks most visits. Between that and the gift items I buy there (love their Vera Bradley goodies) I figure I have made up for the very few books I discovered there and bought elsewhere.