An editorial in the guardian on books eh?
Key line - Independent booksellers cannot compete on price, though they often make up for it by being more interesting places to go.
No doubt that C & P is a more interesting place to shop than Tesco, Asda, Waterstinks, Bored or even my own bedroom but I also think we're good value.
Ok so our book of the month this month had to change when we realised our choice (a good one if we say so ourselves) had also been chosen by all the big players above mentioned meaning we had to change it to...NOT TELLING - Find out next week - it's going to rock...
But yes - we are also good value. Bestsellers, Wayne Roony Books, New Stuff - OK the net and the big guys cane us by milking the economies of scale. (YAWN!)
Most other stuff we are no more expensive. That's right. A backlist PB from C & P £7.99, also £7.99 in Waterstinks (won't have it at ASDA) From Amazon it will be cheaper but not when you factor in the postage. And have you ever tried to browse on Amazon? Exactly. We are also faster than Amazon in 90% of cases...
So come and check us out. Interesting AND good value.
And Marie!
cpadam
Another interesting thing in the editorial was the mention of such things as parking regulations affecting sales for independents more than competition from the chains. It reminded me of something Nick Hornby mentioned in yesterdays Independent. When asked to comment on Waterstones being given the go ahead to take over Ottakers and the knock on effect for other bookshops Hornby thought that the biggest threat to independents was rents and not competition.
When I used to work for Waterstones up in Islington there was an independent not more than a hundred yards away. The introduction of red routes, exorbitant parking prices and finally, greedy landlords (have you seen what Upper street has turned into theses days) was what did it for that shop. Most definitely not the competition from us and the huge Borders that opened up a few years back.
There are plenty of customers for independents to survive as long as the rents are reasonable - 100% rent increases are not unheard of come lease review time.
I think Matthew would concur that the more homogenous Waterstones makes the market the more independent minded customers will be driven to us and that's a good thing but the unseen forces are the ones we have to look out and prepare for...
The Mayor has just released the plans for Waterloo and Lower Marsh (http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/planning/waterloo.jsp) we are cautiously supporting some of these proposals but if the area becomes more commercial, our rents...
May we live in interesting times.