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Academic bookselling at "crisis point" - Myers
21.03.11 | Lisa Campbell
Waterstone's has called for academic publishers to "significantly" increase their support for the chain, warning bricks and mortar academic bookselling could vanish from the high street within a few years.
The retailer's m.d. Dominic Myers told delegates at the Bookseller Association’s annual Academic, Professional and Specialist Bookselling Group conference last week that the academic bookselling industry was at a “crisis point,” in which 2011 would be a defining year.
The digital world in which students operate is a particular threat to academic bookselling, Myers said, and the current business model has struggled to maintain pace with the changes. For bricks and mortar academic booksellers to survive the next 12 months, Myers called on academic publishers and booksellers to work more closely together.
“From my perspective academic bookselling actually is at crisis point,” he said opening his presentation. “I believe that booksellers and publishers need a different co-operative model and I think we have to create a paradigm shift in how we address the online market for physical books.”
To sell books to students during peak season trading, Waterstone's has to offer at least a 10% discount, which cost the company £1m last year, Myers said. “I need hardly remind you that last year Waterstone's registered a total profit of just £3million,” Myers said. Quoting one of his managers, he added: “We made less and less money year after year selling overpriced items to people with very little money who know where they can get it cheaper.”
To address the issue, Myers asked publishers to fund shop-front windows with consignment stock during off-peak trading seasons, improve the margins they offer and find more innovative ways of delivering content to students. He said: “We need to improve our margins. I don’t mean our usual half a percent haggle, I mean moving the dial significantly towards booksellers. We on our part will introduce a much bigger diversity of student-friendly product to improve margin but academic book margin is down to you."
He also called for more equitable joint funding and discounting, in particular a contribution towards promotional discounting. “We cannot afford to keep subsidising and keeping the academic market on the high street. If we can make those things happen there is a host of ways we can co-operate to drive sales.” Waterstone’s could work to create dedicated spaces in store for certain ranges and give loyalty cards to lecturers, Myers added.
He also said booksellers and publishers should share more information, such as reading list data, and create an online site making it easy for students to find that information.
“We do want to sell educational books on the high street and on campus and online but only with the right model,” Myers said. “This is actually a tipping point year for this industry – let’s have some honesty between booksellers and publishers and do something about it. This could otherwise be the last year of academic on the high street.”
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Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll discuss it with the new owners...
WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF AN INDEPENDENT.
WE'RE STRUGGLING PLEASE HELP US.
WELCOME TO OUR WORLD
Waterstones want more discount. Ahh Diddums......
More co-operation a la Foyles would be welcome
We are struggling at the moment, and to stock your books we neeed you to give us more discount, we cannot keep up with the amazon discounts if YOU dont give us more discount.
hahahaha, life hard right mr myers. indies do this day after day, and get less discount and FIRM SALE !!!!
get a grip.
you dont mind when ur publisher funded 3 for 2's take all the customers away form single indies do you.
next you will be at a meeting telling landlords that if they want their Shop space rented out they should lower the rents........ MMMMMM wish we had thought of that 1
Can't say I'm particulary surprised, I was saying the same last week.
Personally I'd stop stocking academic titles in store. Most students buy them online anyway, so we should work logically and direct them online. That way we can offer students a competitive price with and get the books to them with a reasonable delivery window.
That's the answer. It's other people's fault. Not Waterstones :D
Actually it's the truth of the matter, yes an honest opinion! I can tell you're shocked.
"We made less and less money year after year selling overpriced items to people with very little money who know where they can get it cheaper.” Nail on the head. Clear the shelves and sell it online.
Amazon do very well at academic time and so could we.
No, it's not Waterstones fault. They seem to fully admit with this that academic bookselling is beyond them. They have already lost this one, these types of books are mainly sold online.
As publishers, we should direct our marketing spend on outlets that can actively sell our stock. Waterstones cant, so we look elsewhere.
As for consignment.. HA!!
I suggest someone in Waterstone's put a gag on this man... he is slowly making the company look like a laughing stock (more so than it already is).
Firstly he moaned about distribution, even though his company's Hub has pretty much ruined his stores.
Now, he is whining about not getting enough discount from publishers?
How about he stop whinging and trying to show shareholders that he is doing something and actually get into the stores, talk to staff and try to increase morale.
How dare the company that killed Dillons - especially its flagship store on Gower Street - blame publishers! Reap what your company sows Mr. Myers, you're in a duckshoot and can't see it.
Actually for once I agree with Waterstones and I speak as a medium sized independent employing over 80 people with one of our shops in a University.
Most of the comments above are pretty unhelpful.
At the end of the day the more we push students (and the media) online the more books will be sidelined as a learing medium and this will impact on general book sales also.
Publishers need to be very wary if they think all will be rosy with only one or two online customers to deal with.
Waterstone’s could work to create dedicated spaces in store for certain ranges and give loyalty cards to lecturers, Myers added.
ER,actually we do already have lecturer loyalty cards,it's just like our points card and they get 10% off, in exchange the lecturers send us details of their reading lists.
Academic bookselling is hard work ,it requires knowledge,it requires building relationships with publishers and their reps and lecturers and the students themselves. Students,if they have to order a book WILL go online because it's cheaper, but if you have the right book in stock for their course or exam (normally that they have in a hour) then they will buy it. Most reading lists are full of old editions or incomplete information, Amazon can't help you figure out what your lecturer actually means,we can!
John Smiths have had a successful year with their campus shops so that proves,IF you are willing to expend the energy academic books can make money. Waterstones just doesn't want to be bothered.
Ah, Waterstones want more discount. Again. If I were an academic publisher I would market my product on my terms, possibly not supplying Waterstones at all.
Some harsh words here maybe from people who weren't at APSBG. Whilst I can't agree with everything he said, there is truth in his arguement that if publishers want a healthly marketplace not utterly dominated by one internet retailer then there is a conversation to be had about funding the large advance stockholdings and yes margins too.
Gower St Dillons did 40% of it's almost £19m t/o from academic books but I bet that isn't the case today . Academic publishers never really believed that the needed bookshops apart from campus stores . I think that they may well be about to reap what they have sown .
As Mystic Meg said "There may be trouble ahead for a bookshop beginning with W"
How many textbooks are Waterstone's 'up-pricing' above RRP? Who needs better discount then? Think students will notice?
'...overpriced items to people with very little money'
And this coming from a company that earlier this year at least seriously considered marking up their academic stock by ten per cent. I don't know if that's still the plan, it is no longer anything to do with me, but it was certainly brought up as a very real possibility.
Glad i'm out! My future is far brighter but i feel the pain of my former colleagues, still so passionate despite being put against the wall by the donkeys up top. I hope the announcements coming work in their favour and not see them going down with the ship.
Surely getting rid of low margin, high value academic stock is exactly what Waterstone's wants? They have made a virtue of de-stocking; at least, that's the picture painted in my nearest branch by the empty shelves, weedy tables and numerous face-outs in every section. I am in there a lot and talk to the staff. They are a damn fine bunch and are so fed up with it I ache for them.
But hey, look at the space it will free up for even more of whatever lovely high-margin 'non-book product' their head office can get their hands on. Chocolates, scissors, board games, toy helicopters...I can barely tell the difference between my local branch and the WHS up the road anymore. Actually, this branch is in a major Scottish city and currently has less Scottish book range than the WHS in the nearby train station so no disrespect to Smiths.
And if I can paraphrase Mr Myers, Waterstones made less and less money by not selling books that were not in stock to people who do have money who had to go elsewhere to get them.
very funny daphne, if publishers would do this with regard to all books and customers, re amazon and supermarkets... then they would be making more money, we wouldnt look as if we are ripping every1 off by charging full price on books because we get such poor margins to ofset the larger margins these "bigger boys" get in the 1st place
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