I don’t think that these ocmpanies have really taken that much busienss away from Christian bookshops, and the ones that are doing well are offering good USPs.

From the best data I have seen I would estimate that Christian online stores only account for about 10% of the Christian book sales in the UK, with the general on-line retailers adding another 5 – 6%. As a commonly quoted figure is that only 1 in 10 church-goers will go into a Christian bookstore in a 12 month period, there is plenty of room for growth for everyone if it is done right.

The logical (and I mean logical, in market terms) conclusion of the inexorable advance of eden.co.uk is presumably to close down all other competitors and dominate the market entirely. But having said all this, eden.co.uk is a Christian company, undergirded by Christian values. So, eden.co.uk, what is your plan to replace these losses to the Christian community? What is your commitment to local incarnational presence? What is your message to the elderly ladies on low incomes who like to buy their Christmas cards from their local Christian bookshops?

Are these real questions that need answers, or should we just bow to the market and await the inevitable?

Don’t get me wrong I have no real problem with Eden or Amazon, except when they make such fatuous statements as its not price discounting that brings the customers in and is a primary factor – that’s a bit like Tesco or Asda saying its not their prices that make them the top choices – sure its not the only thing as after all if it was just cost then everyone would shop at Aldi, Lidl & Heron stores, there is a factor of choice, range, convenience and taste to account for as well, but don’t be naive and say its not price!
I have way too many customers who initially say they can get x off it from eden or amazon and can I match that to believe that one!

Come on Gareth, Prove that statement by removing the price factor and lets see how much the price really is a factor then when a good percentage of those customers decide to visit Amazon instead to partake of their breadth and convenience?? probably not then hey – not a risk you are willing to take?

As many people know I used to run an Online Bookshop – it did OK but the one thing we didn’t do, except on our Bargains Page, was discount the cost of the book other than that common to any bookshop ie if a new book was being offered at a limited time price to everyone, oh and no free postage either! So yes I concede people do use online shops for convenience, breadth etc, but that price thing is a big factor – we regularly recieved emails and calls into online asking about discounts and other online shops were frequently being cited, I am sure we lost out some business because of this, but I am also sure that we didn’t knock high street bookshops either, but worked in tandem with them instead – our customer base was most often different to their’s, yes more specialised, foreign, academic and those with no shops near or unable to get out.

Oh and in my Bricks and Mortar shop we do put out the Advance info we are sent (top marks goes to the nicely bound advance info from SCM-Canterbury, BRF and the STL Bulletin, though of course all address and other significant detail has to be removed with black marker first so the canny bookagents and church leaders don’t have easy access to the details of those who will deal with them as esteemed customers directly!) and some publisher catalogues by our little sit stool as we are a little shop with very finite space! though we is growing as space and finances allow! and we do see a good response to them, it also helps that we now have notices up as to our ordering services and they can see us go online and order it/check stock out.

The very old STL complete catalogue still gets a bashing – shame they dont produce that anymore, especially as the search function (actually my staff call it the unrepeatable words head bash oh no nearest match because we did/didnt capitalise that day function! and often go grab the old paper catalogue themselves!) on their site necessitates me using Eden, Amazon or Bertrams as a catalogue source to find the ISBN or such!
By this point if I have used Bertrams I quite often place my order with them anyway -especially as they give me a slightly better discount anyway!
Indeed lets face it as independents there are times when the discount off offered by Amazon or Eden makes it as cheap to get it from them as from some of the suppliers anyway!
(and see I base my hypothesis based on me, mel normal, – don’t tell me price don’t matter it sure as heck do! it’s as integral to my buying decisions as range, service, speed of delivery, carriage minimums, convenience and ethical balance!).

However given the recent press(Page 15, October 2008 Christian Marketplace) on publishers etc ditching paper catalogues for the online option this raises issues! and not just the ones cited above re:stl search and ditching of catalogue already. Because unless someone wants to grant/sponsor/donate/loan bookshops an extra computer to set up in the shop that the customers can use to look books up on in the same way they can browse the catalogues this idea is of time limited use – however I guess that wouldn’t help really as many of them would then use the computer to buy the book directly from the publishers site or nip on to Amazon or Eden and get it anyway at a reduced offering! and even an affiliate scheme wouldn’t help here as you can’t get your percentage for ordering in your shop etc, so the only option is perhaps to go to a local development agency and ask them to give us grants to set up and help run an online bookshop!

Hmm! So that takes us back to Phil’s most visited post: ‘Christian Bookshops: who needs them?’
oh and that challenge to Eden – prove price really isn’t a factor and stop discounting the books – then maybe we’ll believe you, or is it that you aren’t so sure it’s quite so true that you needed to make a point of it? I’ve always liked the saying ‘the lady doth protest too much!’