Business survival strategies for independent bookshops

You may remember “You’ve Got Mail” - a romcom starring Meg Ryan & Tom Hanks. The film casts Hanks as the head of a gigantic bookstore chain and Ryan as the owner of a small children’s bookstore shop - no prizes for guessing who wins, and what happens at the end. A decent cinematic example to use to make the distinction between mass and niche marketing…

This useful article in the Guardian examines the competitive issues and strategies being pursued by smaller, independent bookshops in the face of a pretty hostile competitive environment. Lots of great business studies material in there for students - particularly AS & A2 students wanting a slightly different example of how to manage a business effectively. Some key points to draw out include:

• Segmentation differences: the needs and wants of a book customer in a large chain or supermarket are very different from those of customers who frequent the local small bookstore
• E-commerce? Hardly any mention of this as a distribution strategy - but extensive use of face-to-face promotion using book-signings as a way of atttracting customers into the stores
• Highly mature / low growth market: makes it very difficult to earn an adequate return on investment. Competition is described as “cut-throat”