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10/09/2004: "Bricks Mortar / Bricks & Clicks"

In the book world today, there are two kinds of stores: Bricks & Mortar and Bricks & Clicks; or, in layman's terms, actual stores and virtual ones.

Having an actual ("open", as we say in the book world) store is a lot of work. Those of you who've read my previous blog know something of the work-load involved. Multitasking is a requirement, and cleaning up after customers is a big job itself. The other work which goes with a shop is guaging what you primary customers want, and making sure that you keep that stuff in stock.

The online store (bricks & clicks) is a different affair entirely. Your "store" is a website, with multiple listings on different book-oriented websites. Every day you download your email, check over your orders and inquiries, and process the sales you have. You run the business out of your home to save on rental fees, and park your car outside because your garage is filled with books and shelves; doing so saves money because you don't want to rent storage space--if you do that, you might as well have an open store.

The trick to a virtual store, though, is maintaining your stock. Since you don't have an open shop where people can drop off stock, you spend a lot of time on the road chasing books. While this can be exciting, it's also a large amount of work. One man of my acquaintance who operates strictly online (after operating a bookshop for about 15 years) told me that he spends roughly 1/3 of his waking time on the road! If that sounds sad, wait until you hear the next part.

More and more independent bookstores are closing. The reasons are varied (higher cost of rent, diminishing customers, lack of service by distributors, etc.), but the result is that more bookstores are moving online. The next time you do an online search for a book, take a good look at the number of people who are listing their books on the web. Every day, it seems, there are more sellers competing for your sale. This has two net effects: 1) It lowers the overall price of books--as more sellers get into the market, their numbers drive down the prices. 2) The work-hours of booksellers increase as they strive to get more books listed; this increases their fatigue and their mistakes. Of course, that's the national average these days, isn't it? Longer hours, less sleep, for the same amount of money.

Not that virtual stores are all bad. Another bookseller I know quit her open store three years ago to operate strictly online, and now finishes all her work before noon, leaving the rest of the day free!

Personally, I think I'd prefer to remain an open store. I enjoy seeing children read Winnie-the-Pooh for the first time; I like recommending new authors to customers, I still get a kick out of explaining to tech-oriented kids that the basis for The Matrix can be found in Socratic wisdom! Hard to do that online!