Medusa

Indigo Shows The Way Forward For Bookshops

<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Even in a thousand years&comma; when we all have quantum computers and live on one of Jupiter&&num;8217&semi;s moons&comma; there will still be bookshops&period; They might be niche&comma; even more niche than they currently are&semi; they might be subscriber-only or in some kind of 31<sup>st<&sol;sup>-century museum complex showing how we used to live back when Earth was still habitable&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">The reason for this is that bookshops are great&period; They&&num;8217&semi;re the only place where shopping is a luxury&comma; rather than a chore&period; And even the smallest bookshop is virtually infinite in volume&colon; Think of the smallest bookshop you&&num;8217&semi;ve ever been in&semi; you&&num;8217&semi;d do well to read every book in there in a lifetime&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">And that&&num;8217&semi;s why&comma; despite the omnipresent rumblings in the publishing industry about the death of books&sol;hardbacks&sol;novels&sol;publishing&comma; there&&num;8217&semi;s still at least one bookshop in ever mall and town center&period; People want them&period; The market provides&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Those convinced that the cheaply-available books from Amazon or in the form of e-books will finally kill the industry would do well to remember that people said the same about Penguin and its incredibly cheap paperback editions of classics&comma; and that was in the 1930s&period; The Frankfurt Book Fair has existed for almost as long as books have&comma; and has been discussing the death of the publishing industry for exactly the same amount of time&period; We&&num;8217&semi;re still waiting&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Indigo-Chapters&comma; as it&&num;8217&semi;s currently known&comma; is a product of the latest trend in the ongoing but possibly imaginary death of publishing&period; The two bookshops merged in 2001&comma; keeping open as many stores as possible while moving some of their stock online &lpar;inevitably&rpar; to keep pace with the fast-changing global book market&comma; driven by Amazon&&num;8217&semi;s revolution in the world of bookselling&period; To this end&comma; they&&num;8217&semi;ve kept prices low by offering Indigo-Chapters coupons and also embraced technology with repeated expansions into Amazon&&num;8217&semi;s territory&period; For example&comma; they now sell books online as well as in their stores&comma; so you can get Indigo-Chapters coupons online&comma; too&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Indigo-Chapters also launched and eventually span-off the popular line of Canadian e-readers&comma; Kobo&period; This engagement with online selling and e-readers clearly demonstrates the way forward for booksellers of all types and sizes&colon; Embrace the technology&comma; don&&num;8217&semi;t reject it&period; People want a bookshop they can sit and relax in or explore all afternoon <em>and<&sol;em> they want quick&comma; cheap access to books when they need it&period; Indigo provide all the above&comma; which is why they&&num;8217&semi;ve been able to weather the tropical storm that is Amazon&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Having once been the target of accusations of monopolistic practices&comma; Indigo-Chapters now has to head off a still more-effective monopoly from Amazon&period; This may be progress&comma; of a sort&comma; in that for all each company has been accused of monopolising its market&comma; both are still fighting to stay ahead of the game by providing more to consumers for less&comma; with Indigo-Chapters promo codes and all manner of deals&comma; bargains offers and other incentives&period; This&comma; after all&comma; is the point of a modern market&colon; To deliver meet demand with supply for as low a price as possible&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;

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