REDgroup administration and the rise of indie's.

REDgroup has just announced “voluntary administration” here in Australia, quoting among many reasons the rise of internet sales and the price competition. What I did not realise when coming over here is how inflated the cost of books is. The family I live with bought a paperback copy of Conn Iggulden’s Fields of Rome novel, usually priced at £7.99 in the UK. From a Borders store in Melbourne it cost them $25 (about £15). This is due to the fact that the Federal Government in Australia has put a Copyright Act on books which effectively prevents the importation of legally copyrighted books from other countries. Instead it creates a closed market in Australia and although there have been various booksellers, bookshops and readers who have called to change this law (which similarly applied to CD’s in Australia, but was overturned in 1998 causing a dramatic drop in their prices) for books it does not seem to have happened. It is no wonder more people are shopping online here than ever before. Even if they buy a book online at the UK price it’s still cheaper than the Australian price.

Tony Nash, chief executive of Australian online bookseller Booktopia, reckons that the collapse of the REDgroup chain presents an opportunity for the independent bookstores of Australia. Like in England, independents are thriving whereas the chain bookstores are being crippled by costs, a loss of individuality and poor staff. Nash goes on to argue that even the difference in Australian in store book pricing when compared to online deals will be cancelled out by the fact that Australian’s want local, independent stores. The movement of the customer towards individuality, personality and difference is happening worldwide. You only have to look at the Book Hive in Norwich which won the Telegraph’s Best Independent Bookstore in Britain prize, despite having two Waterstone’s branches only down the road, to see how people are fed up with the monotony of chain bookstores. Their cost cutting, stock reductions, uninspiring identical displays and staff who are required to meet certain quotas, ask specific questions and push the customer into extra sales makes people disinclined to visit when they have a local, independent, varied, friendly and vastly knowledgeable store perhaps only next door. What these chain bookstores do not seem to realise is that people want to see individuality, they want to see a different collection, a varied display and a little creativity throughout, and it does not matter how many deals they offer, unless they can catch onto the mindset of the independent bookstore they are not going to survive in such a competitive market.

Aspects of The Books Hive, Norwich.

Effectively this worldwide change is showing that the market must change. Where people were happy to buy from any store, they are now much more conscious of who they are supporting and what that means for their money. When you buy a book from an independent and you see that their next display is even more fantastic than the previous months, or that they have a new event, a new member of staff, or an increased section, you can visibly see the change that your purchase makes. You buy a book from a chain and their display is still just a range of posters and a poor stack of books that is repeated in every store, that the stock has not varied at all and if anything has got smaller and that the staff are just as driven by head office protocol; it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. Chains have presumed that because they have the market share they in effect demand your custom, but this is rapidly not becoming the case, customers are now going out of their way to buy from independents, especially in Australia where there is a much vaster range of independents when compared to England.

I do feel sorry for the staff of chain bookstores, and there are many, who try within the confines of their job to provide the personal service that people want and are sadly being made redundant in huge numbers worldwide. However, there are enough staff working at these stores who do not care about their service to put customers off and turn them away. From experience I know how hard it is to meet the requirements that a head office puts on their staff (a head office that is built up of people who have never worked on the shop floor, have no idea what customers actually want and little desire to leave the confines of their office in order to find out). From how they are to approach a customer, creating “yes answer” questions that is meant to inspire a sale, to placing the book in their hands, recreating a “sale effect” and then offering them a range of deals in a last minute attempt to create one extra purchase, it is all thought out for shop floor staff in order to try and make the most money from the customer. You are only expected to create a rapport or a conversation if it leads to a sale, and it is very hard to want to serve people when you know that should the sale not happen, your customer service is called into question because you have not followed the prescribed protocol.

As a result I am in two minds as to the increasing fall of chain bookstores. Witnessing the effects of the multitudes of redundancies it is not a nice scenario; however the rise of independent bookstores cannot be a bad thing. I think that chains will survive as long as they realise now what the customer wants and change accordingly. Let staff chat to customers about books, whether a sale is on the cards or not, and increase the range, as opposed to going into increasingly overpriced gift ideas, DVDs and toys that repeatedly do not sell and are returned in vast quantities. If they allow some freedom within their branches who knows what the results may be, and independents know enough of what their advantages are not to let the chains gain such control over the market share again.