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Monday, January 16, 2012

Books Shopping Local—Online?

Posted by Alison Hallett on Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 9:59 AM

The New York Times had a story over the weekend that explores small online retailers' attempts to compete with Amazon's prices—citing customers whose desire to "shop local" extends to avoiding big-box retailers online as well as in their communities:


Giant e-commerce companies like Amazon are acting increasingly like their big-box brethren as they extinguish small competitors with discounted prices, free shipping and easy-to-use apps. Big online retailers had a 19 percent jump in revenue over the holidays versus 2010, while at smaller online retailers growth was just 7 percent.

The little sites are fighting back with some tactics of their own, like preventing price comparisons or offering freebies that an anonymous large site can’t. And in a new twist, they are also exploiting the sympathies of shoppers like Dr. Pollack by encouraging customers to think of them as the digital version of a mom-and-pop shop facing off against Walmart: If you can’t shop close to home, at least shop small.

The piece goes on to quote Powells' Emily Powell, who rightly observes that “People come because they want to support an independent and feel good about it, [but] you can only guilt people into coming to you for so long.” Read the whole thing.

Related: Last week Paul Constant wrote about the outcry that ensued when beloved Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl partnered with Amazon for a line of reprints. There's a great discussion of bookstore profit margins in the comments, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

 

Comments (9) RSS

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1
Blah blah blah. Text book on Amazon for 10 bux cheaper than PCC. Sry PCC. Also MLA handbook for $20 bux at Powell's. Fuck you.
Posted by tcraighenry on January 16, 2012 at 11:06 AM · Report
2
Everyone should know by now that they vote with their dollars. And if you keep voting for a single company and put the others out of business, then you are giving that company all of the power and market control.

But people, collectively, are stupid, and want their cheap plastic shit.

It would make me SUPER HAPPY if the Merc could also mention how book returns from large stores such as Amazon (and Wal Mart) damage publishers and put small publishers out of business:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p…
Posted by ScrumYummy on January 16, 2012 at 11:52 AM · Report
3
(Companies like Amazon buy large numbers of books at a steep discount so that they can then sell those books at a steep discount, which is why they are so cheap. But the unsold books are often returned to the publisher, which costs the publishers money and leads to them putting out fewer titles and sometimes even going out of business.)
Posted by ScrumYummy on January 16, 2012 at 11:56 AM · Report
4
I've read none of your links, but imma still talk:

I have a 20% rule: if I can find something in a local store, I'll buy it there if the price is within 20% of the full online price (i.e. includes taxes/shipping/handling).

I have no such rule for online retailers, I don't care where they are based. I can't think of any persuasive reason to treat local middlemen any differently than behemoth middlemen. Can anyone else?
Posted by Commenty Colin on January 16, 2012 at 4:02 PM · Report
5
@4: if you're down for smaller local businesses, why does it matter whether they have a storefront or are just a web/mail-order retailer? Buying from Powells.com still helps the local economy, helps Powells at a time when they're struggling a bit, and postpones the day when Amazon is a complete monopoly. I don't mean to make Powells out to be saintly or anything, but I'll definitely support them more willingly than Amazon. I don't really shop at their site much, but when I do I often find used stock that's only in their warehouses. Then it's a choice between ordering it on the site or having them transfer it to the Burnside store for pickup.
Posted by geyser on January 16, 2012 at 4:11 PM · Report
6
@ geyser, we buy 99% of our books at Powells, in person, and often buy our gifty things from used-to-have-a-brick-and-morter Elsa & Sam (www.elsasam.com), etc.

I guess I have two issues a) I usually only buy things online around the holiday season, and thats specifically so Amazon will ship everything wherever I want it to go and I don't have to go to a dozen different sites, and b) how the hell do I know which e-tailers are based in Portland?

Should I just trust they're "local" to somewhere just because they aren't householdname.com, and that's good enough? It seems like the issue is less about locality (since most local booksellers would probably say Powell's is the Amazon of Portland), and more just about "mom and pop" vs. behemoths.


Posted by Commenty Colin on January 16, 2012 at 6:40 PM · Report
7
@ Commenty Colin: Makes sense. Powell's is definitely the local equivalent of Amazon. I like to go to places like St. Johns Booksellers (and not out of guilt, like Emily Powell suggests) but going there is definitely a different from Powell's in every sense of the word.
Posted by geyser on January 16, 2012 at 8:02 PM · Report
8
a different *experience
Posted by geyser on January 17, 2012 at 1:01 PM · Report
9
there is a huge difference between shopping local and shopping online!
Posted by fashionwhistle on January 17, 2012 at 3:06 PM · Report

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