From Publishers Weekly:
Riding strong gains in the second half of the year, bookstore sales increased 39% in 2021 over 2020, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau. Sales were $9.03 billion, compared to sales of $6.50 billion in pandemic-ravaged 2020.
The rebound was not quite enough to bring 2021 bookstore sales back to 2019 levels, falling 1% below 2019 sales of $9.13 billion.
Consumers apparently did buy books early and often in the fourth quarter of 2021. December bookstore sales increased 33.6% over December 2020, rising to $1.20 billion from $900 million in December 2020. The December increase followed sales jumps of 53% in October and 43% in November.
Link to the rest at Publishers Weekly
I do love the stories comparing 2021 sales to 2020 when many places 2020 had long period of dead physical retail. Just like the clickbait headlines weeks(months?) ago – at Mcdonalds earning reports talking that it had its best year since the Clinton era. Of course what they meant was same store revenues increases exceeded that of all previous years except for one during the Clinton terms. How hard of a goal should that be?
You could replace this headline with Movie theaters. They should have all had record 2021 years in growth compared to 2020. Yet they are closing like crazy all over my metro both before, during, and after the shutdowns. My large suburb of a large metropolitan area just lost its last movie theater. It was known for so long that the city and developers already announced its replacement in the same article announcing its closure. (yet it seems like Barnes and Noble closure announcements never say what is filling the space, like its a shock!) They plan to fill the space with up to four different stores:-) Great time to be in retail. And they flat out admit the flagship store taking up the most hunk of space won’t have anywhere near the traffic volume of the movie theater. Yet the city spokesman is convinced this will help revitalize our commercial district. I guess four stores with low foot traffic are better than an empty shell when it comes to tax revenue.
Pay no attention to such stuff. Inflation is transitory. Prices will return to 2019 levels.
As usual, no mention that US inflation from 2019 to 2022 was 9.97%.
So claiming they’re falling short by 1% in pre-inflation revenue is actually a decline of 11%.
Not new, of course. Theirs is a stagnant business sector that has long failed to keep up with inflation when it ran around 1% a year and is now facing the highest inflation in four decades and the usual decline in discretionary spending that follows high inflation.
“Please don’t mind the elephants stampeding through the room.”