Bookshop browsing is, as it turns out, a good thing according to this piece in The Bookseller.
New market research suggests that healthy bricks and mortar bookshops lead to a healthy publishing industry, while closed bookshops don't just shift sales to the internet: many of the sales disappear altogether.
Market analyst Douglas McCabe says: “We estimate that when a bookshop closes, about a third of its sales transfer to another bookshop. This means as much as two-thirds of sales disappear.
"Some of this spend doubtless migrates online, but much of it vanishes from the book sector entirely.”
He added that nothing should be "considered too extravagant" in efforts to keep bookshops going.
We agree, obviously. There is a lot we can do that, say, Amazon can't do. In fact, we'd encourage everyone to treat us with extravagance. Chocolates will do, but only posh ones that come individually wrapped inside ribbon-tied boxes.
The article also says that, with the exception of the Fifty Shades trilogy, social media isn't a great way of shifting book units. So stop reading this blog post immediately. It's stopping you from buying new books. Stop reading. Stop it. Oh, you're so rebellious.
We feel positive about the future. Our customers are loyal and our booksellers are passionate. And we also think that lots of our books happen to be brilliant too.
Some time soon, take a few moments to have a browse. It's an extravagance worth taking.
You're still reading, aren't you? Stop it.
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