From The New Yorker:
While browsing a table of new books at the Strand and spotting one that I wanted to buy, I experienced a common, modern-day itch: Do I purchase the book there and then from the Strand without pause, thus supporting bookstores, publishers, authors, and everything that I believe in? Or do I drive myself crazy by pulling out my phone and checking how much money I would save were I to buy the book online? The Strand was selling the book at a modest discount off of its suggested retail price, but I suspected that it would be less expensive on a certain ubiquitous Web site. Sure enough, the same book was listed there, brand new, for ten dollars less than the Strand’s price. If I ordered it from this Web site, it would be delivered to my door, the next day, for free.
The moral high ground is to buy the book from the Strand. The store afforded me the pleasure of browsing the shelves on a weeknight in New York. The store’s owners permitted me to pick up the book and read a few pages, for as long as I wished. They should have my money. But, for the sake of argument, let’s just say that I chose three additional books and that each of those books was also ten dollars less online. I could save forty bucks, which isn’t chump change. So the question then becomes, where do we draw the line? Are we expected to underwrite David’s battle with Goliath, no matter what the cost? I want to give my money to the Strand. I’m willing to pay more in exchange for the intangibles that I’m offered by a store’s physical existence. But I fear that this business model, whereby physical retailers are basically relying on a code of honor from their customers, is just not sustainable.
So why not monetize the intangibles? The Strand, and stores like it, could charge an admission fee. Something token, like a dollar. For a buck, you’re granted access to everything the store has to offer. You can browse to your heart’s delight. There’s no pressure to make a purchase. And, if you do buy something, perhaps the item costs close to what it would cost online, because all of those dollars would have allowed the store to lower its prices.
I’m not an economist, so maybe this idea is an unsophisticated one. More than five thousand people walk into the Strand every day, according to the owner, Nancy Bass Wyden. (“It’s department-store numbers,” she said.) Would every one of those people be willing to contribute a dollar to provide enough of a cushion to allow for quasi-online prices? And what about the little shop in the rural community, the one that might see twenty customers walk through its doors on an average day? Twenty dollars or so a day may not be enough to keep that store afloat. Is there perhaps some sort of revenue-sharing system that could be instituted, whereby all of those single dollars go into one big pot that each participating physical retailer gets an appropriate share of?
. . . .
In 2013, the then U.K. HarperCollins C.E.O., Victoria Barnsley, floated the notion of a pay-to-browse model for bookstores in an interview with the BBC. A follow-up piece in the Washington Post found that a sampling of American booksellers were hostile to the idea, but a few daring retailers overseas have since begun experimenting with variations on this model. In Porto, Portugal, visitors to the world-famous Livraria Lello bookstore pony up five euros (about $5.50 USD) for an entry voucher, the cost of which is then subtracted from a purchase. And Bunkitsu, a bookstore in Tokyo, charges customers the equivalent of a whopping fourteen dollars for the experience of browsing its inventory and exhibition space. (Included with the admission fee is access to a reading area, where patrons are permitted to kick off their shoes, help themselves to unlimited quantities of coffee and green tea, and read anything they like.)
The booksellers I spoke to in New York were generally uninterested in this sort of radical move. Miles Bellamy, the majority owner of Spoonbill & Sugartown, in Williamsburg, dismissed the idea. “I would never charge people to walk into the store. No. It’s just not classy.”
. . . .
“Bookstores are havens,” she said. “They’re one of the few public spaces left. It’s my responsibility as a bookstore owner to figure out how to stay competitive. Charging admission?” she asked, incredulously. “What about children? What about teen-agers? Absolutely not,” she said. “I’d rather close.”
Link to the rest at The New Yorker
PG says, “Give a try,” while thinking “This sounds like desperation and smells like flop sweat.”
But he could be wrong.
Another fatuous SJW screed, combined with self-righteous ADS, that will likely never be implemented in the real world. And if it is, will drive customers away.
Great idea. But the result may be unexpected.
I think Daniel Kehnneman cites a school that charged a penalty for late child pick up to encourage parents to be on time. Late pick ups went up.
Book stores may find people preview books then buy on line because they paid for the privilege.
What is wrong with these people? Another ADS sufferer, who sees a moral dilemma where there is none. Who can’t even bring themselves to mention the name “Amazon”. Who sees bookstores as David to Amazon’s Goliath. Book stores are businesses, not charities. The formula is very simple. If enough people think like the writer then book stores will survive. It they do not, book stores, or at least most of them, will go the way of the many obsolete businesses before them.
They’re living in the past.
While we’re living in tbe 21st century, on the cusp of multiple, multi-trillion dollar industries aborning, they’re fretting over the cooling corpse of the 20th.
I suspect their heads would explode if they saw what today’s venture capitalists are building.
Hint: check out the Bloomberg Giant Leap of videos on youtube. Five and counting.
Makes me glad I’m not involved in near future hard SF because all those stories are about to become alternate history. The future is going to be amazing…
…if we don’t blow ourselves up in the next ten years.
If enough people think like the writer then book stores will survive.
But, the writer is seriously thinking of clicking the Amazon BUY button. He wants to pay one dollar so he can save forty.nNot encouraging when the boat is already sinking.
Actually he wants YOU to pay one dollar so HE can save forty.
Breakage (the economic term) is assumed here. For “everyone pays a dollar and the bookstore offers better [than a dollar] discounts” to work, many people need to pay the dollar but not take advantage of the discount.
“Howard Fishman is a writer, musician, theatre-maker, and composer based in Brooklyn, New York.” – http://www.howardfishman.com/bio – he’s of a type, and that type is not businessman.
Good point. $40 for a year’s free pass.
No, not a pre-paid pass.
More than five thousand people walk into the Strand every day […]Would every one of those people be willing to contribute a dollar to provide enough of a cushion to allow for quasi-online prices?”
Everyone, upon entry, would pay $1. In return, somehow, books would not be marked up $10 over Amazon’s pricing.
The only way that works is if only 1 in 10 people purchase a book. Or 1 in 20 purchase 2 books. Or if only best-sellers are discounted. Or something. He doesn’t know, because he’s an idiot.
The Strand would jettison $9 of markup in favor of a $1 cover charge, and that would work somehow. It doesn’t add up – it’s stupid on it’s face.
It doesn’t work under any plausible scenario. But breakage would flourish. Make the $40 for a single year only. Then it expires. Make it $100 if consumers want to wear Birkenstocks and scarves.
Meanwhile, down the street, some enterprising bookstore is advertising, “No cover charge any time! Free coffee!”
A lot of subscriptions work off that model, gyms in particular. Lots of people sign up after new years and by February only show up sporadically. It usually takes several months of non-use to get them to cancel.
KU is nominally unlimited checkout, ten books at a time, but reports are the average is closer to six. With no word of how many of those are full reads.
In well designed systems, light users subsidize the heavy ones. Other systems end up a certain ebook subscription service ( 😉 ) that had to cut back on romance titles because they were being read out of hearth and home. Through it all, though, subscriptions need to promise a clear benefit so everybody gains at least a bit over not subscribing.
Bookstores can’t make that claim: a $40 subscription, for example, needs to guarantee more than $40 in savings. With Amazon, B&N, and ABEbooks out there whatever they offer will pale in significance to what going elsewhere can offer.
Even if a subscription offered to price match Amazon, assuming the store could afford it, it would only appeal to a few ADSers. And there’s still tbe used book option undercutting them.
Heinlein used to remind us not to underestimate the power of human stupidity but book readers don’t skew quite as low as booksellers.
No.
When he had the thought “maybe this idea is an unsophisticated one” he should have stopped right there.
They don’t seem to grasp that having to travel to the bookstore is enough of a burdensome tax. Adding any more will simply reduce aready low traffic even more.
The more you tax something, the less you get of it: A concept above the comprehension of far too many out there.
Agree.It doesn’t take years studying anything to know it’s a dumb idea. But, it would be great fun to watch.
San Francisco gives bookstores cash to stay in business…
Eleven SF bookstores get cash assistance from city
…so perhaps charging admission is not as crazy as it might otherwise seem? Then again, the amounts distributed seem negligible compared to the costs of running a retail store in a major city, so who knows.
California in general and San Francisco in particular spend taxpayer money in many fruitless ways. Doesn’t make them sensible.
Although LA is trying to outdo SF:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/homeless-people-in-los-angeles-la-builds-pricey-koreatown-apartments/ar-AAG44Kj
Without clicking on the link, I’m guessing that it’s an April Fool’s Day story.
*Clicks on the link*
Ohhhh. Oh my. And it isn’t the Babylon Bee or the Onion, either.
Well, if the entrance fee model fails, maybe they can try the one where you don’t have prices on the books at all. They can call it the “If You Have to Ask, You Can’t Afford It” model. Plus, the store should make sure to enforce a dress code when customers arrive, which will perhaps be by appointment only. A white-gloved butler can hand each customer a glass of champagne as they arrive. And, perhaps the only form of payment the store will accept is a black American Express card.
You don’t have to pay to walk into any other store in the US. Doesn’t seem like a viable business model.
IIRC, Benjamin Franklin’s original library was by subscription.
Well, some exclusive bars and upscale restaurants have cover charges if you’re using their (limited) premises. Usually to troll for hook-ups. 😉
But most bookstores aren’t upscale or exclusive enough to justify any charges.
And besides, the proponents of such ideas are living in the past, when browsing bookstores was the only way for consumers to discover reads. Nowadays it isn’t even the preferred way, much less worth paying for.
It’s just the old Showrooming zombie meme disguised.
> other stores.
Sam’s Club is safe from me. As are Costco and any other store that thinks it can charge me to enter.
“But Amazon is eating our business!”
“No, your problem is that you suck at being a business…”
Strictly speaking, membership stores don’t charge to enter or browse. They just only sell to subscribers. In fact, non-member browsing is welcome as it often leads to subscription.
Depending on what you’re shopping for, it can be a no-brainer to join: the savings on big ticket items far exceed the fee.
Supposedly Costco basically sells at cost, and their profit equals the membership fee (# of members * annual fee)
Whether Costco is a good deal depends on what you buy and how much.
Jeff Bezos urges them to go ahead.
The higher the better, too.
They’re SPECIAL!!!
(Seriously?)