Used Bookstores in the Digital Age

How are they doing? Will they survive?

From a piece in Publisher's Weekly...

“In my mind, this is the second industrial revolution,” says Oldfather. “I know retail will never look like what it did.” After watching the number of available CDs dwindle, he predicts a similar fate for books. To protect the jobs of the 300 people who work at Bookman’s, he is planning to draw on his 36 years in used books and launch Bookman’s Recreation Exchange in Tucson this fall. “It’s going to be the same vibe, and that’s what we’re selling,” he says, along with sporting goods, exercise equipment, and sports books. “I want to make a sporting goods store that’s a place to hang out.” Oldfather would like to take the concept national.

Business is up 1% at Dallas-based Half Price Books, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. But that hasn’t deterred the 115-store chain, in 16 states, from adding a new store recently in Naperville, Ill., or remodeling stores in Apple Valley, Minn., and Austin, Tex. “We see people coming in—they’re just buying less,” says executive v-p, marketing/development Kathy Doyle Thomas. “We’re looking at how we can control expenses. We will close unprofitable stores. If our potential customer base goes down, we’ll consolidate stores.”

Recently Half Price surveyed customers to find out if e-readers were eating into their business. “What we’re seeing is interest in both e-books and print books,” says Thomas. “It’s going to depend on how cheap e-readers are.”