Books Without Borders: A Victory For Amazon, But Also For Independent Book Stores

It’s amazing, isn’t it, the Borders bankruptcy?

Not amazing in a fun way – although the idea of a typically perky Borders employee being handed their pink slip does lend itself to mean-spirited satire: “oh, pink slip, great choice, I’ve been meaning to read that one myself – did you find everything you need today? Fantastic! Do you have a Borders reward card?”

No, it’s amazing in a “woah, how the hell did that happen?” way. It seems like only yesterday that we were cursing Borders for driving local independent bookstores out of business. And yet, this time next month, America’s streets will still be littered with thousands of independent bookstores. Borders stores? Not so much.

Explaining the global fall of Borders – their UK arm collapsed last year – isn’t quite as simple as blaming Amazon and the rise of ebooks. But it mostly is. The company took a big gamble a decade or so ago in focusing on the notion of bricks-and-mortar book shopping as an “experience”. Stores were built with coffee shops and comfy chairs and warm little nooks in which people could hang out all day and read all the book and magazines they wanted. Unfortunately, after finishing their coffee and their free reading time, many of those people subsequently went home and took advantage of Amazon’s significant discounts to actually buy books. Only those few customers who demanded instant gratification needed to actually pay full price in store.

Then, with the arrival of the Kindle, even those impatient shoppers had no need to visit Borders.

So, with Borders gone, Barnes and Noble struggling and independent stores still closing in their dozens, is this the beginning of the end for real world bookstores? Actually, I think probably not. In fact I suspect the death of Borders might actually cause something no-one in the book trade ever thought they’d see: a resurgence in independent book stores.

For a while, Borders – and the bigger (and for now more solvent) Barnes and Noble – represented a kind of mushy middle for bookselling. On one end of the spectrum sits Amazon – colossal of inventory, quick of delivery, soulless of personality. If you know exactly what book you want, Amazon is the place to buy it.

At the other end of the spectrum sit the independents – mom and pop stores and dusty used bookshops, staffed by knowledgeable bookworms eager to recommend something quirky (and possibly second hand) that they themselves have read, and think you might like. Borders plunked itself awkwardly in the middle, trying to out-stock the former (and failing) and to out-personality the latter (and failing). Even if Borders couldn’t replace the independent bookstore experience, the existence of a giant competitor in the their midst certainly hit mom and pop’s bottom line. No-one did well from the fight except for Amazon.

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Books Without Borders: A Victory For Amazon, But Also For Independent Book Stores.