
Local bookstores have a new weapon in the fight with Amazon - chewymouse
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joanverdon/2020/02/14/advocate-for-local-bookstores-takes-aim-against-amazon-with-new-website
======
jamestomasino
(The article sums up a lot of this, but the actual website is more misleading)

I went through and clicked on the about page. The books aren't sold through
local book stores. It's a front for Ingram, which handles the orders. The
local bookstores that sign up as affiliates get a percentage of the sale,
basically as referrers.

I'd love to see this as a search-model that drives to the actual stores, but
it seems that would be much more difficult to implement with arbitrary
stocking information. In its current state the site represents itself as a
method of shopping local, borrowing its respectability from the local stores.

------
toyg
This could potentially enable what I always thought the final model will look
like: you go into a store, find the book, point an app at its store-specific
barcode, and you get it physically delivered or saved as ebook - the store
makes a percentage but prices can still be competitive with Amazon, and
everybody is happy. If you really want to take the book home on the same day,
an extra fee is added (to pay for traditional stocking costs).

You could even do it without custom barcodes, just with some geofencing or
wifi identification. At worst, with a dedicated touchscreen device in-store.

Alas, i’ve repeated this idea everywhere for years and nobody in the industry
seems to have latched on it yet, so maybe something I don’t know about the
industry makes it unviable ️

~~~
mdorazio
I don't see how this can be cost competitive. You would have to add a
percentage on every purchase high enough to cover the entire overhead of the
store, including property and employees, while at the same time maintaining a
large enough selection to get people into the store instead of going online in
the first place. There's also no guarantee that people won't do what they do
today, which is browse in the store and then go straight to Amazon on their
phone to save money instead of using your scan approach.

~~~
toyg
The margin is already there today, but it’s “under siege” by Amazon prices. My
model would shrink it a bit _per item_ (getting closer to the Amazon one) and
then recoup it _in aggregate_ by dramatically reducing local inventory while
ensuring the same (or higher) amount of total sales. Basically you shrink
costs while making it easier for customers to give you money.

Obviously you cannot stop people from going to Amazon anyway, but if you make
it easy enough and convenient enough for customers to buy stuff right away
(including ebooks, which currently are not sold in-stores _at all_ ), I think
you have a good chance to compete.

~~~
solarkraft
Now the only problem left is: Why would I go so in the first place? To browse?
For the nice book store feeling?

Maybe some people do that. Since I just read E-books that were recommended to
me I'm long lost anyway.

~~~
toyg
Some of the best books I’ve read in my life, I picked up almost randomly in a
store - maybe they were highlighted by employees, maybe they had a
particularly nice cover or backcover... that feeling of having discovered a
gem on my own, or the fun of spending an hour browsing dozens of books to find
The One, maybe talking about it with friends or employees, is so satisfying
that it keeps me going back.

The online experience is severely lacking, imho. Maybe it will be different
for generations that grew up with Amazon, but to me the bookstore experience
is superior. I think they are missing a trick by not allowing me to couple
their experience of serendipitous discovery with the convenience of ebooks.

------
mindracer
This sounds similar to hive.co.uk they offer profit sharing with a bookshop of
your choice and you can pick up your purchase from a local bookshop.

~~~
Freak_NL
There was a Dutch initiative in 2019 as well (bookaroo.nl), but that seems to
have failed quite miserably. The concept had local bookshops deliver the
orders with Bookaroo acting as a nation-wide online shop and asking a 5%
commission. It quickly proved too expensive for bookshops to be worth their
efforts.

In the Netherlands people who know the value of a good local bookshop tend to
make an effort to support them and just go there, and many already deliver.
The rest of the readers won't switch from the convenient and cheap bol.com
(Dutch) or amazon.de (amazon.nl coming soon for physical products too).

------
dzink
Storefronts are becoming the discovery location, while sales shift online. In
the past few months I’ve had more than one staple household purchase disappear
from grocery shelves to require us to buy from Amazon. It makes sense - stores
now charge something like $250k for stocking/shelf space fees. Bookstores have
a different structure, but I hope to see more online warehouses show up to
rival Amazon, because scalpers do enjoy hiking prices there whenever something
is out of stock elsewhere.

~~~
WalterBright
> because scalpers do enjoy hiking prices there whenever something is out of
> stock elsewhere.

True, but if you despise scalpers, how are you going to get an unavailable
something?

------
freefaler
I use [https://www.bookfinder.com](https://www.bookfinder.com) to search for
paper books. Sometimes I dropship them to a scan-service and for 20-30 USD I
could get a decent PDF scan of the book.

This has worked very well for older books too. Prices are much better than
amazon and you save a book from the landfill.

------
thewhitetulip
Stores just can't carry that many books.

I haven't used amazon since a few years but when I was looking for a book, I
ultimately had to order online. No option.

What would've been best is go to a store and they'll deliver ur book at your
home in the evening if they don't have a copy handy

Till the happens stores will find it hard to compete with Amazon who does
essentially that

~~~
mumblemumble
Usually not "no option." I frequently use Amazon's app to look up an ISBN, and
then bring it to my neighborhood bookshop and ask them to order it for me.

The only time I've ever _had_ to order from Amazon is when I'm trying to get
something that just isn't distributed in the USA, or is only being sold by, in
effect, scalpers. e.g., last year I got a box set shipped to me from Europe
for ~70€, where US-based sellers wanted more like $300.

(Even there, I suppose I could order from Fnac or somewhere instead, but
Amazon seems to fare better at getting through US customs.)

------
WalterBright
By far most of the books I buy are from thrift stores, and the sales the
public library does. It's not unusual for me to come home with a shopping bag
full of books.

~~~
jobigoud
I used to do this a long time ago but now I find that picking books like this,
semi-randomly, isn't a good use of time. Reading a book takes time and there
is already more interesting content than I can consume. This means if I choose
carefully I can spend all my reading time reading the most interesting/useful
books possible, instead of being constrained to whatever the thrift store
happens to have at this moment.

~~~
acdha
Internet arbitrage caused quality to tank about a decade ago: any time there’s
a sale, note the people cruising through checking prices on their phones so
they can pick the books with significant resale value (the used bookstore
owner probably does this too, if they’re still in business).

~~~
WalterBright
The thrift stores do that, too. However, I've found that a book's resale price
has little correspondence with its quality - more like how many of them were
printed.

------
subpixel
Will they really be able to compete with Amazon pricing and free shipping? And
pay affiliates out of a remaining margin?

I suspect not.

------
neonate
[https://archive.md/ZyNM2](https://archive.md/ZyNM2)

------
amelius
Speaking as a consumer, it would be nicer if we could cut out the middleman
entirely, though.

------
chucky_z
alibris.com already does this and it's pretty dang good. I buy all my physical
books through them

~~~
jrmg
Alibris is great - though I have suspicions that it’s now dominated by
warehouses and thrift store ‘chains’ rather than independent retail book
stores.

