The competitive world of… Second Hand Books?
by Mort on Aug.06, 2009, under News
When someone mentions second hand bookshops my first thoughts are of establishments, which look more like someone’s front room than a business, chocked full of shelves filled, floor to ceiling, with musty old tomes. That and, of course, the famous old Yellow Pages ad which chronicalled one man’s quest to obtain a copy of “Fly Fishing” by J R Hartley.
However, I noticed these two articles in the Guardian and thought they raised an interesting quandry. The nub of the first piece is that Oxfam’s second hand books business is putting independent second hand book stores out of business, even going so far as to call the charity “the Tesco of the secondhand book world,” while the second piece, written as a response to the first, takes a more balanced view, in my opinion.
Second Hand Books: a more competitive trade than you might imagine!
While I can absolutely understand that it would be a concern for someone who’s livelyhood is being threatened, I’m not sure, objectively, that there’s anything at all wrong with a charity running it’s fund-raising operations as a business. That’s essentially what they are. They are in the business of raising funds to support the charity’s causes, and to me it seems somewhat asinine to suggest that, just because they’re a charity, they should operate in anything other than the most efficient way possible. Not to mention that charities get all sorts of flak when they’re deemed to be wasting funds which could instead be spent on charitable causes.
Having run my own business, for a number of years, I do have some sympathy for the small book shop owners who are finding it hard to compete with Oxfam’s operation; not only do Oxfam have economies of scale on their side, their charitable status also gives them an edge over other businesses in terms of reduced business rates, & means that they benefit from having volunteer workers, further cutting the running costs of their outlets. All of that has to be hard for a small “one man band” to compete with, and on an individual level I feel for small business owners who are out-competed by the big players.
Unfortunately though, that is the nature of business, and short of introducing legislation to protect small business, which in wider economic terms would be a disaster, (you can’t expect an economy which penalises successful, growing, businesses to flourish,) there’s not a lot that can be done to level the playing field between big & small businesses.
The answer really has to come from the small businesses themselves. Their owners need to be realistic about their business models, and need to be able to adapt it to find a niche that the “cookie cutter” business models employed by multi-outlet operations aren’t able to cater to, or, in other words, they need to specialise, to be able to offer something which the big names can’t.
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This is my blog (duh!) Mostly I rant about stuff that annoys me, but I *try* to do it in an informed, intelligent way. Ok, I only said I *try*- Enjoy, or don't, I don't much care, but hopefully you might find some of it thought provoking. *shrug*
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August 6th, 2009 on 4:16 pm
The very thought of buying second-hand books whether from Oxfam or elsewhere makes me cringe. How can you read a book not knowing who’s had their fingers on it before you? A terrible thought.
August 6th, 2009 on 4:50 pm
In most charity shops, the book offer is rubbish: the same old two- to ten-year-old mass market stuff in bad nick, haphazardly arranged, and priced not far below the cost of a new book in Asda or Tesco (one of many other reasons the ‘proper’ second hand book trade is suffering). At Oxfam they have got their act together, and sell books professionally, particularly in their specialist stores, in some cases more professionally than many ‘proper’ secondhand bookshops do along side their charity gifts.
Charity shops have got the usual commercial pressure to respond to their customers’ needs. But they also have the pressure to respond to their obligations to their donors, to try to raise the most money possible from donated items, hence the pricing policy that has them tagged as ‘expensive’ (yet still criticised for undercutting rival private secondhand stores). Charities, especially high-profile ones like Oxfam, also have to be seen to be following many procedures that private businesses can often pay lip service to, such as health and safety and auditing, knowing that disgruntled people often take their ‘greedy/dangerous/cost heavy charity’ stories to the media or even the law.
So there are disadvantages as well as advantages to being a major charity.
But the undeniable fact is that many ‘proper’ secondhand bookshops are bloody awful and deserve to close, just as many of the independent bookshops that have gone to the wall in the wake of the Net Book Agreement’s demise and the rise of the chains/Amazon were bloody awful too. Yes there are good new/secondhand bookshops, and yes good ones have closed down, but there were/are still plenty of secondhand booksellers who sneer at mass market sellers/buyers, offer desultory sums to sellers, and generally act like antisocial gits rather than retailers desperate for a sale. I discussed this article with several people today and half of them had had poor service from secondhand book shops.
There is nothing to stop secondhand dealers using their book knowledge to stock new stock sourced on a sale or return basis from a wholesaler, run customer ordering services of new books as well as the usual secondhand service, and even sell coffee and cake and fair trade chocolate, and put on events etc etc. I’m sure some do already, but I’m equally sure that some others just moan that Oxfam are closing them down even as they continue to run their secondhand book businesses much as they did 20 years ago.
February 16th, 2010 on 7:18 am
wonderful post, I will be sure to bookmark this for more of your writing.
March 10th, 2010 on 3:53 pm
I love books, and second hand book stores. I especially love getting a second hand book and reading the little messages on the inside pages that people write… birthday messages or school award stamps or just peoples names. It’s so interesting, like a little keyhole look into someone else’s life.