Introduction
The publishing and book-selling industry has undergone many changes in the past. These changes were mainly due to the advent of online sales companies like Amazon and the formation of mega-stores dealing with the distribution and the sale of books. This was also due to the break in the Net Book Agreement which opened up the publishing and the sale of the books to the control of market determinants. These among other factors like competition led to, among other things, the collapse of the Borders UK limited.
History of borders UK
Borders UK Limited was formed in 1998 and gained its independence from its American parent company. It thrived well in the later years to own 68 outlets when it was at its peak. This however did not last long for it was to later close its operations in the UK in 2009 due to the increased costs of running the business and the diminished rates of return on investment due to the increased competition from the other retailers like WH Smith, Waterston’s, Blackwell, CLC, St Andrews, Bargain, and Daunt Books. Supermarkets included Asda and Tesco. The competition was also high from the independent or specialist bookshops and the internet. This led to the reduction of its outlets to 45 at the time of closure.
Other retailers in oxford, apart from the borders, include Blackwell which is “an academic and professional publisher dealing in the areas of life and physical sciences, medicine and allied health, engineering, humanities, and social sciences” (Blackwell UK Limited, 2010). It continues to gather the rare and out of print collections in all fields to ensure that its customers are well taken care of.
WHSmith is another of the leading retailers, bookseller, stationers and newsagents in the United Kingdom. It has about 500 high Street stores and over 120 travel stores. These are found at the airports, train stations and motorway service areas (WHSmith, 2010). These supply the people within a certain locality whereas the travel stores care for the people on the move so they stock newspapers, magazines, books tailored to meet the needs of travelers. It also deals with their online customers (WHSmith, 2010)
According to its website “Waterstone’s mission is to be the leading Bookseller on the High Street and online providing customers the widest choice, great value and expert advice from a team passionate about Bookselling; Waterstone’s aims to interest and excite its customers and continually inspire people to read and engage in books” (About Waterstone’s, 2009). Each of their bookshops is styled to have its own unique features that promote the type of books picked by the branch. This mega store is keen on promoting the independent publishers for it recognizes their input into the publishing and the academic world.
The Inner bookshop deals with books concerning personal health, individuals mind and what we as human beings cannot explain while the Booklover, an independent Oxford bookshop and comic shop that was set up in the summer of 2006, aims of providing second-hand books and comics of high quality and that are in good condition. These old and rare books will, as expected, have some wear and tear, but the bookstore aims at ensuring that the consumers’ needs are met. St Andrews bookshop deals exclusively with the Christian literature. Waterstone’s Marketplace offers an extensive range of used, out-of-print, and hard-to-find books, music, and movies.
Reason for its failure
Borders failure can be attributed to the failure of the Net Book Agreement. This was an agreement in UK between the publishers and the book sellers on the pre bargained fixed prices at which the books would be sold to the public by the retailers and whoever broke the law was not to be supplied again by the publisher, (Book trade: One chapter closes, 2009).
The agreement ceased to be in 1997 ushering in a new era whereby the retailers in competition for the markets could cut prices in an effort to reel in customers and this was the climate in which borders was founded. With the collapse of borders, a shift has been seen whereby there is a preference to shop in the smaller bookshops and retailers. This is because the big retailers changed the book business, in an effort to outdo each other, to become media controlled. What they stocked was not based on content but popularity in terms of author ratings and the published materials reviews. These superstores only took in the big authors and writers thereby shunning the less known and emerging authors, who later found their place with the small retailers. This led to the small authors’ success when the customers who were looking for content moved their businesses to the small retailers (Book trade: One chapter closes, 2009).
As a result the large publishers incurred losses due to the discounts they were obligated to pay their best seller authors. Due to the high losses the publishers let go of the authors leading to a situation where the publishers had no authors and the authors had no publishers as a result of publisher-author incompatibility. This in return has led to decreasing variety of books in terms of topics due to authors lacking publishers, and decreased sales of published due to the availability of cheaper and free readily available materials on the internet. It is estimated that more than 19 percent of the UK book sales is currently being traded online and the proportion of the online retailer market share is rising due to the increased variety of books and other publications to choose from, speedy deliveries and the large amounts of discounts offered. It is also more flexible in that it is able to respond to changes in trends and/or events (Borders UK collapse a sign of changing times, 2009).
Apart from the internet, supermarkets are among the forces that have brought change to the state of the book selling. This is through their willingness to discount heavily on books they sell as a strategy to increase their customer base. This ensures that they have a market for their other supplies and the end result of this is pushing down the prices leading to unhealthy competition with other books retailers with overhead costs (Borders UK collapse a sign of changing times, 2009).
Effect of borders collapse
The effect of the collapse of the borders, according to Neill & Denny (2009), “could lead to loss of its half of the customers in terms of books sales and trade permanently.” This would be by these customers changing from the book trade to other forms of entertainment and sources of news permanently. This according to Neill and Denny (2009) would result in losses in the excess of 35.4 million pounds a year to the books trade industry.
Other retailers are moving towards the online marketing in an effort to retain their customers. This can be seen through the collaboration of the Amazon, an online book retailer, and the oxford literary festival to sell their biographies and bibliographies of the festival authors (Neill, 2010).
The problem of advent of the EU as a single market for free movement of goods contrasts the US/UK publishers contract whereby UK is an exclusive territory but the mainland Europe is not. This may lead to the flooding of the UK market with the cheaper books and other publications from other European Union members creating unfavorable competition (Cameron, 1999). This is where the other member state of the EU exercises the opening of the borders to sell their cheaper books in the UK.
Many people believe that the traditional methods of selling books are becoming smaller and smaller in terms of volume but will never be phased out completely. This is because the bookshops allow a person to experience and explore the many opportunities open to them when browsing through a collection. According to Cooke (2009), “Contrary to popular belief – or at least to those dullards who swear by Amazon – shopping for books is like shopping for clothes, or a husband: sometimes you don’t know what you want until you see it, and this is where a good store comes in”. She argues that although Amazon may come handy sometimes, it requires a person to know exactly what he or she needs in order to find it in the internet. You must have the titles or the description of what you want if you have any chance of finding what you are looking for.
Conclusion
The stage of publishing and bookselling has been changing and is still continuing to change. The entrance of the electronic media has led to a cheaper and faster access to information and entertainment forcing the print publishers and retailers to come up with new ways to compete with the electronic publishers. The print publishers have started using the electronic media and using intensive advertisement methods, training their staff to anticipate the customers’ needs. They have started selling their goods online to try and compete with the professional online sellers. There should be laws controlling this business to ensure that the small scale publishers and booksellers are not forced out of the market
Reference
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Blackwell UK Limited. 2010. Hoover’s Company Records March 1 51054. Web.
Book trade: One chapter closes. 2009. Book trade: One chapter closes. Guardian.co.uk. Web.
Borders UK collapse a sign of changing times. 2009. The financial times. Gulfnews.com. Web.
Cameron, S., 1999. The business student’s handbook: developing transferable skills. The Financial Times/ Pitman Publishing. (Online). Web.
Cook, R., 2009. Beyond Borders: the future of bookselling. Guardian.co.uk. Web.
Neill, G., 2010. Amazon.co.uk and Blackwell booksellers for Oxford Literary Festival. Bookseller.com. Web.
Neill, G. & Denny, N., 2009. Borders’ fall to shrink trade by ÂŁ35m a year. Web.
WHSmith. 2010. About us. Web.