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Restrictions in the wake of the corona pandemic threaten to hit bookstores hard again as they face the most important time of year. – Now it wants to be bought in stores so that the industry survives Christmas, says Maria Hamrefors of the Swedish Association of Book Sellers.
With the new restrictions, bookstores are struggling again. Stock Photography.
A new difficult period awaits European booksellers. During the start of the corona pandemic this spring, they ended in a deep crisis: Between March and May, book sales in France, for example, fell by as much as 60 percent compared to last year. Now the bookstores have been forced to close once again. And even if Swedish bookstores are allowed to stay open, new regional restrictions discourage people from visiting the stores.
It can be fatal for the book industry, says Maria Hamrefors, president of the Swedish Book Sellers Association.
– We have already seen four, five stores closed as a result of the pandemic. So it’s still been off season. But if we have a bad Christmas operation with sales losses as great as last spring, it will be very worrying for many, then they will not make it, he says.
It is true that total book sales increased during the first eight months of the pandemic, by 7.4% in crowns and 20% in the number of copies sold. But it is digital streaming services and e-commerce that are doing well, the physical bookstore has reduced its sales by 17.2 percent.
Online book purchases also don’t pay off completely, according to Maria Edsman, CEO of Akademibokhandeln and Bokus.
– In early fall, the rise in e-commerce was large enough to offset the loss in stores. This was also due to the fact that the loss after the summer was not as great as in March and April. But now it’s back down in stores and it will be a challenge to make up for it entirely with e-commerce, he says.
Maria Edsman does not believe that the stores are completely empty and therefore both have worked to make the stores safe and expand e-commerce capacity.
The bookstores that have been most affected are those located in shopping centers, or in areas with many office buildings. Smaller stores have performed somewhat better, but are traditionally more vulnerable at the same time. It is often family businesses that have run the bookstore for decades.
– If they don’t, there will rarely be a store in that place, says Maria Hamrefors.
She emphasizes that the store is important to the entire industry, both for the experience and for many customers to receive advice on books they did not intend to buy. Additionally, bookstores favor literature that is not suitable for streaming services: higher-rated literature, children’s books, and finer non-fiction books, according to Maria Hamrefors.
In France, they have called for a boycott of chains like Amazon, so that they do not compete with the usual bookstores. The same problem exists in Sweden, says Maria Hamrefors. She emphasizes that stores have worked to make visits safe and thinks that they can be more secure than e-commerce delivery points.
– Then it would be better to buy on a weekday in November, in a store. The store is doing its best now to get customers to buy a little earlier this Christmas.
The bookstore crisis
From March 9 to August 9 this year, sales in physical bookstores decreased by 28 percent, or SEK 115 million, compared to the same period last year.
During the first eight months of the year, the book industry experienced a 20 percent increase in volume or nearly 7 million books. The fact that the volume increase is much higher than in crowns means that the average price of books has dropped, and this is mainly due to growth in digital subscription services, where prices are lower .
Between March and May, book sales in France fell 60 percent. But in the first week after opening, sales rose again by 230 percent, according to AFP. Now, however, the stores have been forced to close once again and there is a discussion in Europe about whether the bookstores should be open despite the closing of the company, citing that the book is an important “commodity”. In Italy, they have chosen to leave them open, even in the so-called “red zones”.
