Down but not out

An interesting article to read after that one from March about Amazon closing its bookshops.

How Amazon surrendered in its war on bookshops – New Statesman
[T]he number of independent bookshops in the UK been growing steadily since 2017. In 1995 the UK had 1,894 independent bookshops, according to the Booksellers Association. By 2016 the number had halved to just 867. But despite the pandemic’s effect on small businesses, in 2021 the number of independent bookshops grew 6 per cent, surpassing 1,000. […]

But in many ways, explains Roland Bates, who works at Kirkdale Bookshop in Sydenham, the very technology that once posed an existential threat to independents has become hugely beneficial. Wholesalers’ increased efficiency means many bookshops, Kirkdale and Chener included, are able to order books for customers to be available for pick-up the next day. Meanwhile, endeavours like Hive and Bookshop.org aim to offer a comparable service to Amazon Books while giving shoppers the ability to nominate an independent bookstore to receive a proportion of the sale, which Bates says was particularly useful as a revenue stream during lockdown.