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Membership of Germany’s Börsenverein des deutschen Buchhandels has continued its downward spiral in 2018. The latest figures published by the trade association show 4,513 companies at the end of December, a decline of 3.1% compared to 4,657 12 months earlier. Over the last decade membership dropped by a fifth from 5796 to 4,513 companies.
In contrast to the UK, the Börsenverein is the trade body for Germany’s book industry as a whole, representing publishers and booksellers as well as distributors and other book-related companies. Booksellers are by far and large the biggest group, representing about 60% of all members. They are also the sector suffering the worst decline. While the number of publishers fell by 2.3% to 1606, the bookseller count was down 3.8% to a record low of 2,736.
The association named a number of reasons for the booksellers decline but did not support them with hard figures. While more booksellers gave up compared to 2017 due to economic reasons, an even larger number left the association because they closed their doors for good after reaching the retirement age. More booksellers than a year earlier also sold the business to one of the leading bookselling chains, namely market leader Thalia and the regional chain Osiander.
Membership fees bring in about €5m annually and are the most important source of income for the Börsenverein. To stop the decline the association has introduced a number of measures; such as offering smaller companies with sales not exceeding half a million Euro a twelve-months trial period at the hugely discounted price of €299. The conversation rate to a regular membership at the moment stands at 40%.
German brick-and-mortar booksellers are faced with a cocktail of pressures. But none are currently hitting sales and profits more than competition from online retailers and the subsequent customer migration away from the high street. According to the trade paper Buchreport and market researcher GfK high street booksellers lost 6.4 million customers (-18%) between 2013 and 2017.
Final figures for 2018 are not out yet, but there is a glimmer of hope the downward trend might have been stopped. Between January and September the number of shoppers was up 1.6% year on year. If this is the result of new marketing and shopping concepts recently introduced by booksellers large and small or consumers simply getting bored of buying online awaits to be seen.