Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 19, 1993 TAG: 9308190398
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Medium
The store's hunter-green exterior, carpeted floors and beamed ceilings invite Eckert and other readers to lose themselves among 100,000 titles.
"I like the music. I love having bookstores where they have chairs, where they encourage you to sit down and read," Eckert said, sitting in the store's cafe. "It's a little bit the sense of a library."
Vast "superstores" are opening amid what some are calling the bookstore wars of the 1990s.
"The '90s are becoming probably the decade when the book business in America is going to explode more than any other in this century," said Steve Riggio, executive vice president of New York-based Barnes & Noble.
Some say the competition is healthy and will encourage more people to read. "We believe the more bookstores in America, the better off America is going to be," Riggio said.
Others warn that the huge chains opening many of the new bibliogiants are bent on driving small neighborhood book shops out of business.
"They're not in bookselling because they love it. They're in it because it's good business," said Bill Kurland, owner of Shakespeare & Co. on New York's Upper West Side. "The chains have been predatory."
In July, Kroch's & Brentano's, a 86-year-old Chicago-based chain, said it is closing 10 of its 19 stores and blamed the failures partly on the superstores.
In addition to a huge selection, many superstores have music and cafes. Some lure customers with author readings and signings. Most offer deep discounts - up to 40 percent off best sellers, for instance.
Almost all superstores keep long hours. Barnes & Noble, for example, is open seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Smaller stores are using survival tactics.
Platypus Book Shop in suburban Evanston, Ill., extended its hours after a Barnes & Noble moved in nearby. But with just two full-time employees and two part-timers, there's no way to keep up, owner Margriet Schnabel said.
In Santa Barbara, Calif., the Earthling Bookshop, struggling to compete with a Barnes & Noble two blocks away, offers to deliver books and expanded its cafe. "It's easier to make profit on coffee than on books. But I'm not a restaurateur," owner Penny Davies complained. "I am a bookseller."
And Kroch's, long averse to discounting, is offering 40 percent off best sellers.
A study done for the American Booksellers Association said Americans bought 822 million books, excluding children's titles, from April 1991 to March 1992, up 7 percent from the same period a year earlier.
Sales in the first four months of 1993 totaled $2.84 billion, compared with $2.57 billion a year earlier, according to preliminary estimates from the Census Bureau.
Some bookshops contending with the superstores see being small as a virtue.
"We've thought about the books for you. You don't have to look at every gardening book ever published," said Pat Peterson, co-owner of Barbara's Bookstore, a five-store Chicago chain.
But some say the deck is stacked against small stores. Indeed, the Federal Trade Commission in 1988 charged six major publishers with discriminating against independent bookstores by selling to big chains at lower prices.
But Davies lamented, "By the time the FTC gets around to doing what they want to do, a great many booksellers will be out of business."
\ WHAT ROANOKE VALLEY BOOKSELLERS SAY
Richard Walters, owner of Books Strings & Things in Blacksburg and Roanoke: "A bookstore has a chance to have a real personality. The stock, the employees and cumulative customers can make them very distinct. The mall setting makes for a similarity that is not appealing to everyone."
Sam Shackleford, owner-operator of Fishers of Men Christian Bookstore, Roanoke: "I've been able to develop a loyal market. I know my people and I can be flexible and stock what they like."
Beth Garst, Ram's Head Book Shop, Roanoke: "We've been here longer than the chains and our selection is much more esoteric. The quality of the books is going to be the same, so people are looking for personal service. Business is great right now."
- Pat Brown
by CNB