By Michael Baxter 15 Jan 2010 [1 Comment | 465 views]
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While this column is a fan of the Internet, it is with a heavy heart we describe to you the problems at Waterstones.
The fall of Borders at the end of last year was a tragedy. Consumers, and especially those who like books, are worse off as a result.
Now Waterstones has fallen under the press spotlight.
Christmas wasn’t so good. And now the retailer, which is owned by HMV is re-thinking.
The retailer is under threat from two corners. On the one hand the big blockbusters are for sale in Tesco and the rest of the big supermarkets. The books are dirt cheap, so how can the bookstore compete?
Then at the other end you have Amazon. In a poll from Verdict Research out yesterday, Amazon was voted shoppers second favourite source of products. (That’s online and High Street,) Only John Lewis could do better.
At Tesco you have limited choice of books, but if the latest Katie Price, Dan Brown or book from the Twiglight Saga is your thing, then the supermarket is fine.
At Amazon the choice is just huge.
Waterstones sits in the middle, but is there a market?
Well, it just so happens books stores are the authors’ favourite shops, so there is a bit of bias here, but the truth is, the book industry needs Waterstones. It is the industry’s shop window .
The plan now at HMV is to go back to basics, and put more emphasis on local, with each store catering to local needs. This does rather mean there has been a big mess up, because last year it introduced a centralised buying system.
Book shops are pleasant places. The array of books on the shelves can tempt some people in a way a web site just can’t. But, then again there are e-readers.
Thirty or so years ago, music stores were like books stores now. Album covers were works of art. Browsing amongst the records on display was fun. The CD replaced vinyl, and the fate of music stored on something solid was ceiled. Today, thanks to products like iTunes, it is difficult to imagine how music retailers, such as Waterstones’ parent company HMV, have a future.
It is to be hoped, the book industry doesn’t go the same way.
For an explanation why this is happening, read The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. The big retailers sell the best sellers (think of the middle of spike in a standard deviation graph) and Amazon is a zero cost stock supplier of the Long Tail (the specialist, low volume books out 2 or 3 deviations from the mean).
The message of Anderson’s book is that general purpose retailers will die: they have to specialise to maintain margin. So if you want to browse, say, archaeology books, you’ll have to either use Amazon (or similar) or visit a bookshop that specialises in it: and they’ll only be near universities or Stonehenge.