Three Angus and Robertson bookstores have been shut down in the Melbourne suburbs of Narre Warren and Cranbourne. This is being attributed to the large amount of readers turning to portable reading devices such as the Kindle and iPad. Printing companies have been printing millions of pages a year since the invention of the printing press in the 1400s. Today experts claim that the traditional bookstore could be out of business within the next five years thanks to the internet.
Another problem that offline book shops face is readers now changing their buying habits. Instead of going to the local bookstore to browse for printed Books, many now purchase their Books on the internet. This is because buying Books in this way is much cheaper than buying them offline. The reason behind this is that online stores do not have as many overhead costs as offline stores do. For example a single person can run an online store for under $1000 per year whereas offline stores have to pay staff salaries, rent and utilities.
Many bookstores have opened online stores in a bid to keep their businesses afloat. However some bookstores still believe there is a place in the market for the traditional store. They believe that second hand bookstores will continue to make money as people will always need a place to offload old Books that they have already read. Also many bookstore owners feel it would be too time consuming and costly to list all of the Books they have in stock on a website that sells Books.Get a Free Quote for Books
