Used Book Sales Growing
27 Sep 2005, 9:43:39 am
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The used book market is booming according to the BISG -- topping $2 billion dollars in 2004. Two billion!
Of course, when looking at the mysterious 'bottom line,' to publishers this means customers aren't buying two billion dollars worth of new books. The opposite argument is one that the music & film industries hates hearing: those buyers wouldn't have bought the item at retail price anyway. Of course, publishers would rather scoff at that statement -- how absurd! -- than to figure out why these customers wouldn't pay full price for the book in the first place. Oh, if they had to do that, then they'd have to admit the audience for their books is smaller than they figure when planning, thus showing a flaw in their estimates. This, then, neglects the fact that, when accurately estimating future sales, the book industry could, in theory, budget themselves better.
Publishers also overlook that author/commodity dissemination educates the public about the publisher's product -- via an item that's already been purchased and 'used,' not by spending advertising dollars. It doesn't work with shampoo or shoes, but the used auto market does a good job of keeping the 'successful' products out where potential new-product customers can see them. Even the used-CD market allows customers to experience new or untested bands without too much of a financial investment.
Books also take up space, and the second-hand market allows book-buyers to make room available for new purchases by liquidating books they've finished -- plus put money in their hands that might go back to publishers eventually. Again, back to the used car market: most often, the used car is used as a downpayment on another used car -- or a new one. This is as much a space necessity as a financial one: where would they put both cars? Some people can keep both, but most get rid of the one they're finished with. As in my other tips, mixed used/new booksellers can gain from this process as the used auto market helps auto sales.
So, publishers, embrace the used book market: even if you can show math proving you're losing customers to it, by embracing it the publishing industry could manipulate it into something valuable. Figure out how to keep books rotating in the used-book market, and it will increase product knowledge; base customer estimates knowing a large portion will be reading a book that was already read by another person. Encourage customers to rotate their stock of books, and they'll be buying more books per person -- those books have to come from a retail outlet at some point, and that'll be an increase in sales.
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