Death stories? Perhaps exaggerated.
CNBC posted a story last week on independent bookshops. This didn’t spell out the doom and gloom we have come to expect, but rather painted a sunnier picture of indie bookstores. The article describes the challenges owners had to face and how many of them met the problems, even when Barnes & Nobles opened a few doors down.
“Sales from independent bookstores in 2012 were up eight percent over 2011,” said Dan Cullen a spokesman for the American Booksellers Association, a nonprofit trade group of independent bookstores.
“We’ve got people opening new bookstores and people buying into existing ones,” he said. Talk of the death of independent bookstores “as a result of the big-box stores was premature at best,” he added.
However, CNBC does point out that about 1,000 indie bookstores went out of business between 2000 and 2007, but bookstores are growing again. According to the ABA, the number of independent bookshops has grown 19 percent since 2009 to 1,971.
What it did it take for these shops to make it through the lean years?
The difference depended on the individual stores, catering to their customers. Keebe Fitch, manager of McIntyre’s Books in Pittsboro, N.C., told CNBC:
“We didn’t want to be a superstore, so we learned how to get books that people couldn’t find online, and to cater as much as we could to the customer. When a customer walks in, we try to make them feel wanted and at home. It’s a very personal experience.”
Other moves included Half Price Books removing dictionaries and travel books from its shelves, different advertising strategies, ordering hard-to-find books, and usually good customer service.
These shops could become even more important in coming years as struggles continue for Barnes & Noble. However, it does seem only those with good business plans are going to survive. There are many industries out there that suffered over recent years because of the explosion of the Internet coupled with the downtrodden economy. Strong businesses came out on the other side of that and weaker ones closed.
Perhaps with Amazon and other online booksellers, it’s still going to be difficult to be an independent bookstore. But for right now, there is a still place for these bookshops.
To read the full CNBC story, click here.
