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The buying habits of early e-book adopters could have "quite worrying" implications for high street booksellers, according to data companies BML and Bowker.
Speaking at yesterday's [19th April] LBF, BML's research director Steve Bohme‚ who also presented research from Bowker's vice-president of publishing services, Kelly Gallagher, after his colleague was stranded in New York by the flight ban‚ told delegates that early figures suggested physical booksellers could see a gradual decline in custom.
BML research shows that as of December 2009, e-book buyers purchased 43% of their physical books from chains, 23% from the internet and 12% from supermarkets. However, on average, two-thirds of "book lovers" expected to download books from internet retailers.
Bohme said: "My interpretation is that the kind of people who are early adopters of e-books are typically the kind who buy physical books from chains. If they start shifting to the e-book format to any large degree‚ and on the assumption they'll mostly download online from home rather than going into a shop‚ that could have quite big implications for the high street.
"If it's an add-on business, it's not such an issue but if you make the assumption there will be some cannibalisation, the combination looks quite worrying for booksellers."
Gallagher told The Bookseller that data from the US indicated that as consumers moved over to e-books "they are leaving some of the print world behind". He added: "Amazon would report that e-books are raising sales of all formats but the numbers we have refute that a little. What remains to be seen is whether after a full year of data, total e-book spend covers what [consumers] didn't spend on print."
He highlighted Barnes & Noble, which in the US has launched the Nook device, as an example of one attempt to encourage buyers to enter a store, even for digital downloads.
"There is the consumer's need to go, to touch, to feel, to experience and there is a role for physical stores, but it will have to be where the high street finds ways to merge into this field," he said. "I don't believe they are destined for non-existence because I don't believe digital will reign supreme. We have to keep a level head on this‚ nobody wants to lose 7% to 10% of business, but they can still work around it."