Publishers Weekly’s April 7th issue includes an article,“Consumers, Chains, Internet Ruled Bookselling in 2007″ by Jim Milliot, which breaks down by sales channel the places US book buyers choose for book purchases. PW received their stats from Bowker’s service, PubTrack Consumer.
At the top of the list, selling 33% of the total books sold, were Chain Bookstores. These include Barnes & Noble, the #1 chain bookstore which is based in New York and includes 793 superstores and 100 mall stores (B Dalton Booksellers); Borders, ranked #2 among the chains and based in Michigan with 500 free-standing stores, 300 mall stores ( Waldenbooks); and the #3 ranked Books-A-Million, whose home base is in Alabama and includes 200 stores mostly located in the Southeast but coming up as north as Ohio.
The second most popular sales channel, with 21% of the total books sold, were Internet Retailers, and include the two most popular sites, Amazon and bn.com, among others.
Book Clubs were responsible for 12% of book sales. I was surprised to read that this percentage was as high as it is given the contraction of book club choices today.
Fourth on the list were Mass Merchandisers, which include Target and Walmart, with 9% of book sales. Fifth were Wholesale Clubs, comprising sales through Costco, BJ’s and Sam’s, with 5%.
Lastly, independent bookstores were responsible for 3% of total book sales. One of these independents, and my old stomping grounds, Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, California, where I was the buyer of mass market paperbacks, recently won the 2007 Bookseller of the Year Award. We will be sending them a Congratulations note as they are friends of ours on our MySpace page. http://www.myspace.com/midpointtradebooks
PubTrack’s findings are very similar to Midpoint Trade Book’s 2007 sales. We still find Chain Bookstores to maintain their lead over other channels, which makes the unfolding situation with Borders Books to be of keen interest to us. Our hope is that they survive this tough retail environment as an even more viable and strong bookstore than they currently are.
In 2000 the stats broke down as follows:
34% chains, 24% book clubs, 9% mass merch, 6% internet, 5% warehouse. (Source: IPSOS-NPD Booktrends)
E-Book Update: Amazon makes statement of interest regarding their Kindle.
