Death of the Bookshop?

The Scotsman has a report which asks the question, "Are we seeing death of the book shop?" Based on the bad figures posted by Borders and Waterstones, Susan Mansfield poses the question of whether megabookstores are competing themselves out of existence:

The key event, however, was the abolition of the net book agreement in 1997, which ended publishers' ability to set book prices. Now, book retailers could compete to undercut one another with low prices on the most popular titles. That gave rise to bestsellers being sold at little more than cost price, and today's ubiquitous three-for-twos.

"In most industries, the must-have product is sold at full price because people have to have it," says Ms Fannin. "In bookselling, we have huge sellers like Harry Potter being sold at cost price. It's terrific for the consumer but it's not sustainable. You can't sell books at cost price and still offer service and range and choice."

It's a strange old setup in the book industry - old-school publishers have to provide books at a 60% discount to distributors/retailers, *and* on a returnable basis! Retailers then demolish their own possible windfall (at the expense of publishers) by offering ridiculous discounts. Small wonder that publishing via print-on-demand through Amazon is becoming such an attractive route for small publishers.