alibris.com already does this and it's pretty dang good. I buy all my physical books through them
Alibris is great - though I have suspicions that it’s now dominated by warehouses and thrift store ‘chains’ rather than independent retail book stores.
Local bookstores have a new weapon in the fight with Amazon
21–27 of 27 posts
Re: Local bookstores have a new weapon in the fight with Amazon
#22By 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.
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.
I've discovered the thrift store books are not bad books, they tend to be popular ones that people already read and are just clearing out their homes. I've discovered a lot of very good books I never would have run across otherwise.
I look mostly in the scifi and history stacks.
As for my time, I enjoy picking through the stacks.
Re: Local bookstores have a new weapon in the fight with Amazon
#23I use 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.
Re: Local bookstores have a new weapon in the fight with Amazon
#24This 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 tradit…
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…
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.
Re: Local bookstores have a new weapon in the fight with Amazon
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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).
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.
Re: Local bookstores have a new weapon in the fight with Amazon
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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…
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.
Re: Local bookstores have a new weapon in the fight with Amazon
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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.
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.