While chain bookstores (the few we have left these days) are still selling the lion’s share of books (30.3%), the convenience and opportunity for better prices are leading people to their computers with 26.1% of book sales happening online.
Supermarkets have quickly become our one-stop shops for pretty much everything we need, and they make up 13.6% of book sales; allowing people to make impulse book purchases while doing their weekly shop.
Bargain bookshops are picking up 8.1% and mail order book clubs account for 6.1% of book sales.
This leaves our much beloved but too often neglected local bookshops trailing with just 4.5% of all book sales. Unable to compete on price or shop location, our local bookshops are having a hard time of it. But with libraries forced to close or cut back their hours, local bookshops are the literary life-blood of many communities, and they deserve to be supported. With knowledgable staff who truly love books, events to promote local authors and that wonderful smell of hundreds of books crammed into a small space, they offer a unique book buying experience.
Next time you buy yourself a book, think about where your money is going and, more importantly, where it isn’t.
Figures source: Books & Consumers 2011, BML Bowker/Kantar Worldpanel 2011
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