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Stuff: A survey just released shows that the online book market is booming. Sales online for 1999 topped 50 million books. This, as you would guess, coincides with a fall in market share for book clubs and for traditional "bricks and mortar" bookshops. I'm part of that trend. I buy books online. But I don't buy all my books online. Last year, I would guess that about a quarter of my book purchases were made online; the rest were from bookshops. That's a huge increase - the year before, I only bought a handful of books through virtual retailers. It seems that the future for traditional bookshops is bleak. Project that massive increase forward a few years, and you could predict that most, if not all, book sales will be made online. But I don't think that's going to happen. I'm not an industry expert, or a financial analyst. I can only judge by the way I buy books. This is an entirely personal view, and it may turn out that I'm out of step with the rest of the world - it certainly wouldn't be the first time. Having made those excuses, here's why I don't think traditional bookshops are going to disappear entirely. Buying books online has a lot of things going for it. It's convenient - you can browse, select and pay for books from the comfort of your home, and have them delivered a few days later. It's cheap - the big online stores are able to offer discounts, because their costs are so much lower. Not having to physically keep the stock on display means they can offer a much larger selection of books than the traditional bookseller. It's no wonder consumers are using this method more and more. For me, online bookshops are ideal when I know what I want. If I've read a review of a particular book, and decided to buy it; or if a friend has recommended it to me; of if I've been eagerly awaiting the book's release - then it's much more convenient to be able to click through and purchase it with ease. If I've discovered a new author and want to buy other books he or she has written, online bookshops are wonderful - a quick search on the author's name produces a complete list of his or her back catalog, and I can order everything that's still in print. But what if I am in the mood to buy a new book, but I don't know what I want? Online booksellers are not much help then. I can't browse through the "new in stock" table, picking up books and reading the publisher's blurb to see what it's about. Nor can I read the first chapter to see if it grips me. Online, the information given about a book is minimal. And what about finding the unexpected? The chance catching-of-the-eye of a book you wouldn't normally have looked at. The book that you notice because it's on the shelf next to the one you were looking at. Those serendipitous discoveries are unlikely to happen with an online bookshop. Online bookshops do a certain amount of promotion, telling you about their best- sellers, or books that you might find interesting based on your previous purchases, but if I don't already know that I want a particular book, I'm unlikely to be persuaded online. The final reason for continuing to use traditional bookshops is that sometimes, I want a book now. I don't want it in two days. Impulse purchases demand instant gratification. Having made the decision to buy, I want to be able to read the book right away. So for me, ordering books - or anything - through the Internet is a vastly superior way of buying things by mail order. It's got all the benefits, looked at in a utilitarian fashion. But it will never replace real shopping completely, because it ignores the shopping experience and the way that people make decisions about what they want to buy. Let's hope the majority of book buyers feel the way I do, or my predictions will turn out wrong, and I will suddenly find the enjoyment of buying books has gone. |
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