The advantages of big box bookstores became their disadvantages when Amazon came on scene. Amazon does what Borders did, but better -- that being a large selection, up-to-the-minute inventory system across a chain of stores. You could not go to a small, local bookstore and find 30,000 different titles in one place; nor could you call them and quickly find out how many copies of the hot new title they had in stock, and if they were out, how many were in stock in the next zip code over.
Amazon does all that, but better.
The advantages of a B&M bookstore are that you can browse. Where Amazon tries to recreate that experience, using tags and similar shopper data, nothing beats the "ooh what's that?" experience of browsing random shelves. But any bookstore can do that for you.
Small, local bookstores have a local feel, more than just a "local authors" section, but an authentic local feel. This is something Borders and Amazon could not do. Sure, Borders had (I suppose still has, for the time being) a local manager who knew that the local customers bought a lot of manga; so he stocked a lot of it for them. And Amazon can tell you what other people in [Your Geolocation / Shipping Address Here] buy. But nothing can beat the local culture that comes with something like DC has in Politics & Prose, for instance. Plus, the people at a small, local store are less likely to be minimum wage lackeys and more likely to be enduring partners committed to the store (in that the owner probably works the counter, like at Second Edition).
So that's why I think B&M bookstores aren't going away; but big box bookstores are doomed.
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Date: 2011-07-22 05:13 pm (UTC)Amazon does all that, but better.
The advantages of a B&M bookstore are that you can browse. Where Amazon tries to recreate that experience, using tags and similar shopper data, nothing beats the "ooh what's that?" experience of browsing random shelves. But any bookstore can do that for you.
Small, local bookstores have a local feel, more than just a "local authors" section, but an authentic local feel. This is something Borders and Amazon could not do. Sure, Borders had (I suppose still has, for the time being) a local manager who knew that the local customers bought a lot of manga; so he stocked a lot of it for them. And Amazon can tell you what other people in [Your Geolocation / Shipping Address Here] buy. But nothing can beat the local culture that comes with something like DC has in Politics & Prose, for instance. Plus, the people at a small, local store are less likely to be minimum wage lackeys and more likely to be enduring partners committed to the store (in that the owner probably works the counter, like at Second Edition).
So that's why I think B&M bookstores aren't going away; but big box bookstores are doomed.