Yay Failing Book Stores?

[Plane Sailing]

I blame the schools.

I blame the books!

I blame the school books?

Blame it on the boogie?

 

[JohnRTroy]

Once brick and mortar competition goes away, yes the prices will still remain low on the internet. Because if they do not, someone else will start another internet company that undercuts the prices of the bigger internet company.

Books will always remains cheaper on the internet than they are in brick and mortar stores, and you will always be able to buy them on the internet. It's one of those things that just works well with the net.

That's somewhat naive.

One thing I've noticed about the Internet is that, in terms of commerce, it actually can reduce competition. Because you can ship to anywhere in the US, for instance, competition on the entire market is probably limited to what you would have gotten in a local area, anywhere from 4-8 companies. When the dot-com boom happened, we had a lot of competition. Take a look at search engines--in the beginning we have a few, then about a dozen, now it's down to Google and a few others that are far less popular--Ask, Bing, maybe one or two others. In short, when it comes to e-commerce, the Internet seems to favor Oligopolies.

The only way to really be able to offer cheaper prices on books is to invest in volume and infrastructure. If the competition is already dead, I can't see another competitor being able to build enough infrastructure and capital to offer deep discounts.

 

[Rykion]

Dude. The Borders Rewards program is absolutely free and they send you a "Get 30% off any book in the store" coupon in you email box every 3 or 4 weeks. You can save a few percent more getting something from Amazon, but if you want it today, its just an extra buck to go pick one up.

DS

I buy more than 1 book every 3 or 4 weeks so that's more than a few percent savings at amazon. It does sound better than B&N and Books-A-Million's pay membership. There is a Borders in Dayton which I didn't know existed until I just used the store locator. Unfortunately, I'd waste more money on gas going to the other side of town to go there than I would save on 30% off a $20 book.