In case you're a little murky on your British retail book merchants, Waterstone's is the British equivalent of America's Barnes & Noble. It's the largest bookseller throughout the U.K., usually buying up the competition and burgeoning on a monopoly. You know how Barnes & Noble has a Starbucks in most of their stores? Guess who also wants you caffeinated out of your mind from a Starbucks latte while browsing books? Yup. Waterstone's.
In 2012, thinking eReaders were going to obliterate sales of old-fashioned paper books, Waterstone's came to an agreement with Amazon to sell its Kindle. It made sense. E-book sales were increasing by 50%, 60%, 70% year to year.
And then it stopped.
Digital book sales still increased, but marginally. Yet the sale of eReaders stalled.
James Daunt, the managing director of Waterstone's, was a bit more blunt in his assessment, telling The Bookseller, “Sales of Kindles continue to be pitiful so we are taking the display space back in more and more shops."
Pitiful? But how do you reeeally feel, Mr. Daunt?
"It feels very much like the life of one of those inexplicable bestsellers; one day piles and piles, selling like fury; the next you count your blessings with every sale because it brings you closer to getting it off your shelves forever to make way for something new," Daunt said.
Douglas McCabe, an analyst for British research and analysis firm Enders, said it was "no surprise" of Waterstone's move. "The e-reader may turn out to be one of the shortest-lived consumer technology categories," he said.
Hey, you never know. I'm still holding out hope that Betamax makes a roaring comeback.
No comments:
Post a Comment