It’s that time of the year again. The weather is getting crispy and wherever you go, offline or online, you are bombarded with ads for price reductions, good deals and insane sales. It can be overwhelming and easy to lose track of what you really want or need. If there’s anything EIBF, as the voice of booksellers, would like to remind you of at this time, it’s that where you shop actually matters. For too long, because of their dominant position on the market, large online platforms like Amazon have been allowed to engage in anti-competitive and unfair practices in the online marketplace. This year, join the global movement to Make Amazon Pay and let us tell you why your choice to buy locally this Black Friday makes a difference.
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Any booklover will recognise that special, marvellous feeling of wonder as you walk into a bookshop filled with books from floor to ceiling; so many stories just waiting for you to discover them, so many beautiful book covers to lure you in – some made with such care they look like real works of art. Yes, all avid readers know the excitement of a good book purchase, and the impatience with which you rush home to start reading. In this sense, bookshops are magical places, keepers of a thousand stories just within your reach. But, in truth, they are much more than this.
As cultural spaces, bookshops play a key role in providing access to culture, knowledge and information, and are an integrant part in the life and soul of cities.
Bookshops contribute to the local community
Bookshops are real societal pillars, deeply invested in their communities in many different ways. By having a physical shop, they employ local people, pay living wages to a workforce you know and see every day; as your neighbours, friends, and sometimes (if you’re lucky) also family members.
By having their shop in a physical place, bookshops also pay local taxes, which contribute to the community welfare, supporting health care, public transport, education and more. Therefore, the money you spend in your local bookshop, will always be reinvested in your community.
Bookshops are community hubs, acting as safe and inclusive spaces
Bookshops provide cultural and recreational spaces for their communities and are sometimes referred to as “third spaces”. These are places which are not home and not work, but where you go to enjoy yourself, socialise and have fun. From readings to debate sessions, from theatre plays and book clubs to children’s games and much more; bookshops organise events that allows their community to meet each other, while discovering and discussing new ideas.
Through the books they offer and the events they host, many booksellers are committed to making their bookshops into welcoming places for diverse communities, like the LGBTQIA+ community. This is why they are often referred to as safe and inclusive spaces.
Bookshops offer an experience which cannot be replicated online
The book sector, and all its thousands of small, family-owned businesses, was the first sector to experience Amazon’s anticompetitive practices. By using its vantage point of market dominance – which is the result of a constant race to the bottom – Amazon has in many ways transformed the book market and driven many bookshops out of business. However, the above examples show you all the things that local brick-and-mortar bookshops do, and the added value of experiences that they bring to their community – all things which simply cannot be replicated by online marketplaces, like Amazon.
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If you are still not convinced that it is worth the extra effort to go out the door – remember you can always order from your local bookshop online!
Most brick-and-mortar bookshops nowadays have active webshops. Many of them are grouped under one e-commerce platform, which gives you as a customer the chance to browse millions of books in one single place, and choose your favourite bookshop to cater for the order. You can read more about these platforms in our RISE Bookselling Industry Insights paper on E-commerce platforms for independent bookshops here.
So, by shopping online with indie bookshops, you will save time, but your money will still have a positive impact on local commerce and be reinvested in your community.
Curious to know more about the impact of shopping locally?
Through our project RISE Bookselling, EIBF ran a month-long campaign called “Reviving the High Street” on the role bookshops play in ensuring a resilient and thriving high-street which brings real added value to its communities. Check out the entire campaign and all its resources on our dedicated webpage and engage on our social media with the hashtag #BookShopLocally.
What is the MakeAmazonPay campaign?
MakeAmazonPay is a global campaign to challenge Amazon’s anticompetitive and unfair practices. On Black Friday, 24 November 2023, the Make Amazon Pay campaign organises its 4th global day of action to protest Amazon's abuse of workers, tax avoidance and anti-competitive practices, as well as its growing climate impact in more than 30 countries across the world. The day of action was announced at the first Summit to Make Amazon Pay, which took place at the end of October in Manchester.
Booksellers who would like to participate in the campaign can make use of the campaign graphics to hang in their storefront windows on Black Friday, and take a picture, which they can post on social media and upload here for the global campaign.
Everyone can engage on social media by using the hash tag #MakeAmazonPay.
#BookShopLocally #MakeAmazonPay
