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E-books and the Internet are leading the change on how we read and where we buy our content.
This is true even in Japan, which has a rather significant publishing industry and a large pool of eager readers, where physical books and magazines have had high sales well into the 21st century. While the country is known for its technology, Japanese consumers have been slow to adopt new modes of purchasing their texts.
But all that’s starting to change.
As we’ve seen in many locales, the rise of e-book readers and online retailers has opened up access to more and cheaper books for the average person. And with improved distribution, it’s a matter of days–at most–from the time you click “purchase” to the time your new books arrive on your doorstep.
Japan, though initially resistant, has proven not much different. Amazon Japan and Rakuten both have e-book readers and both sell books at prices lower than what you’ll usually find in a store, especially small-to-mid-sized retailers and specialty stores.
In fact, Mainichi Shinbun recently reported on the closing of some of these smaller stores, marking the shift in the retail landscape from brick-and-mortar stores to digital retailers. In the 13 years between 2000 and 2013, 34% of the bookstores in Japan were shuttered.
Even Kobe’s Kaibundo Bookstore, a nationally famous bookstore specializing in maritime publications, felt the crunch and finally went out of business last month, 99 years after opening. On the stores final day of business, a crowd of hundreds gathered, waiting for the shutters to close for good. Hiroyasu Fukuoka, the store manager, stood outside and addressed the numerous people, saying, “Everyone, please buy books at bookstores. If you don’t bookstores will completely disappear from your towns.”
Speaking with reporters, the store manager explained the problem by laying the blame on customers. “People are impatient,” he told reporters, adding that customers wouldn’t wait a week for a book to arrive when they could get it from Amazon in a few days. Fukuoka also added that bookstores used to appeal to customers by offering valuable recommendations and finding rare books. But now the recommendation algorithms are better online–and so is the selection.
Even large chain stores are struggling to keep up with Internet retailers. It seems that the only way for large chains like Maruzen and Kinokuniya to stay competitive is to maintain enormous stocks of books on hand–which can get expensive quickly. Whether or not it’s an effective tactic remains to be seen.
While avid readers and booksellers alike are fretting about the future of bookstores, Internet commenters have a slightly more cavalier attitude towards the situation.
-- Amazon and convenience stores are good enough. -- The extinct bookstores will live on in our hearts. -- It’s natural selection. Sad as it may be, just give up! -- I like bookstores as places, but when it comes to actually buying books, I go online. -- Specializing in a specific field and not bothering to sell country-wide online is no good. -- Make it so people can get your books online. Right now, Amazon is doing this, and that’s why they’re winning. -- It’s bizarre how little business sense bookstore owners have. Read a book or something and learn a little! -- Does he not understand how business works?? No matter how you complain, it won’t change anything. -- Do something about your distribution system! You’re taking way too long to deliver books. -- What in the world is the merit of buying at a bookstore? -- Don’t just stand around crying! Create some reason for us to buy books at your store. If you can’t, you’re just going to go down and down, and it’s only natural that you go out of business.
A harsh lot of folks, these commenters are. But it’s not difficult to understand their point, is it? If you can’t take the papercuts, get out of the book business.
That said, we can’t help wondering if there is some cultural or societal need for bookstores. Isn’t it possible that there is something to justify subsidizing the industry, especially since the Japanese government currently subsidized domestic farmers? It’s hard to say.
Obviously, this is not an issue that Japan is facing alone, and it clearly affects everything from music to clothing. As long as something can be bought online for a few dollars less, that’s where customers will tend to go.
Now the question is: Who can disrupt the disruptive technology?
Sources: Itai News 2Channel, Mainichi
Read more stories from RocketNews24. -- Convenience Stores to Remove Adult Magazines from Shelves? -- Six Tokyo Starbucks Try All-You-Can-Read Offer -- One in Five Young Adults Have Eaten in a Restroom
© RocketNews24
10 Comments
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timtak
Perhaps book-stores could become internet cafe type places were people purchase books on-line and take an affiliate cut, in return for offering advice on how to use on-line ebooks effectively, or on what books, in what version, using what reader, to purchase.
Another services that they could offer (and is already on offer on-line but you have to send your books away which is a pain see Bookscan and 1dollarscan) is paper book to ebook scanning both of books that the stock, books that people bring to the store, and books that people purchase online and bring to the shop. Until all physical books are ebooks, there will be a reason for going (or sending things) to places.
I used to lament the fact that there is no large book-store in my town but now (especially since I can use Amazon market place to buy second hand books so cheaply) I doubt I would go to the book-store, unless they offered some of the services mentioned above.
But I can scan my own books since we have a large electric guillotine to chop off the spine, and a photocopy machine that scans hundreds of pages at once, to pdf.
mountainpear
A good way to support your local bookstore is to order a book through the online site e-hon. The book, sealed in an envelope if you're worried about privacy,will be delivered to your local bookstore where you can pick it up. The bookstore will still get paid for 'selling' the book. My husband who loves bookstores often uses this service.
nath
I wonder if it's a loss of book sales... Before in Japan shops were shoulder-to-shoulder with customers sneak-reading and buying manga and magazines. Now in a train or subway car you might see ONE person reading something printed. Everyone else is doing something on their smartphone. And remember the cluttered stacks of manga left behind on the overhead racks? Now completely gone.
So while clearly ebooks are nibbling away at bookstore revenue, the wholescale collapse has more to do with the pervasive spread of electronic media in general.
Take it from someone who hasn't ordered or purchased a printed book in more than 8 years, and stopped his newspaper 7 years ago, with zero regrets.
budgie
I still love the feel of a good book in my hands. The smell of a dog-eared, sunburnt old paperback. I'll start reading e-books only when the stuff I want to read on paper has gone out of print and moved to the internet. Till then I'm hoarding hard copies.
ebisen
On word baby - on-demand-printing.
Invent the printer that prints me my book within 5 minutes, and there is no need to keep huger stocks of books that might see the cutter in notime.
Also my nexus 7 contains roughly 5000 books, more than I can read in a lifetime, all of them free of charge. I'm purchasing all the Nobel prize winners, a few "Best Reads", but that's about it.
Serrano
Heck, buy from Amazon, or they'll disappear!
Jean Val-Jean
I buy most of my many printed books from Amazon. Why? Because it saves me wasted time looking in bookstores and money as well. Traditional bookstores are dinosaurs.
Tokiyo
Every culture is unique, its not a Japan only phenomenon. Now, I love books, but order them from the internet now - too much of a hassle navigating through clueless people taking up space.
ensnaturae2
It seems somehow, safer, to depend on basic industries like paper making and printing, - than to trash them all in favour of the digital/electronics stuff none of us will be able to reproduce, if/when civilizations collapse....(as they must, I guess) . I suppose that accounts for the fuzzy-warm, delightful feeling found in the best café/librairie settings, where carefully chosen & loved, real books - can still be bought & sold or fondled and read over again, with a chunk of tarte aux figues well slicked up with a giant dob of creme fraiche, plus a steaming pot of earl grey. aaaah wonderful. but my free kindle and mound of free downloads makes it easier to read anything at all, anywhere in the world.
WilliB
I agree with the bookshops. It is sad to see the book (and retail business in general) being Amazonized. It is a sad phenomenon and will come back to bite us. But maybe the coming end of peak oil will put a damper on this exaggerated mail order boom. Why does every little item have to be trucked to your house?