England thankfully still has lots of good indie bookstores, but many have gone to the wall in recent years. It’s not all Amazon’s fault (they do offer one of the few places you can get next-day delivery for a last-minute gift). But overall, the company has not fared well for indie bookshops. One reason is that they can price-cut, while indie bookstores to survive have to sell books at full price.
Having said that, a book is a book – so paying a couple of pounds extra is worth it to support your local indie bookstore. Bookindy is a clever app that lets you browse on Amazon, then buy the book locally, at good prices.
Mr B’s Emporium is often voted England’s best indie bookshop. More like a comfy living room with armchairs for browsing, the Reading Spa gifts are legendary. You’re invited for pampering in a bibliotherapy room over tea and cake. The bookseller learns of your tastes, and you leave a happy bookworm complete with voucher, mug, cloth bag and gift card.
If you order books online, Blackwell’s is nice, if you don’t mind waiting a few days for your book (it runs a good affiliate program for bloggers). Bookshop is another option (delivered to you or your local indie shop).
Why Indie Bookstores Worry over Amazon
Danny Caine has taken it upon himself to be the champion of asking people to support indie bookshop owners (like him) over Amazon. Read his book 50 ways to protect bookstores. He recently wrote an open letter to Jeff Bezos, which is included in the book offering to take Jeff round his local area to meet real communities and to ‘treat him’ to a cup of coffee at the local indie bar, to try to make him see what his business is doing to local communities.
Danny explains in an interview that Amazon makes up for losses by selling discounted books on other items (like electronics). If he sold a $26.99 book for $15 (he’s in the US), he would make 43 cents. He writes ‘We have 10,000 books in stock. If we sold every one with a 43-cent markup, we’d make enough money to keep the store open for about 6 days’. He also writes of how indie bookstores do things that Amazon can’t – ‘bringing authors to town, working with writers and creating a safe welcoming place for people to browse books for an hour or three. Or feeding store cats. Or paying taxes’.
There are many people who are vehemently against purchasing anything from Amazon. But as mentioned above, if you suddenly need an important item for a baby, pet or elderly relative – it’s one of the few places these days where you can buy it for next day delivery. But for a book? Nah! Just wait a few days and have it delivered by an indie store. There are many reasons to do this. Just a few:
- Amazon still sells real fur, something that most online shops don’t do. Why buy books from a company that is supporting this barbaric trade?
- Amazon does not pay fair taxes (in 2021, we lost around half a billion pounds through their clever accounting laws). This could have paid for umpteen nurses, doctors, pension top-ups, environmental clean-ups and much more.
- You only have to look online to read stories of pregnant and bereaved workers who have not been treated well. And considering the founder is one of the richest people on earth, Amazon workers are not the best-paid either.
- Amazon still uses plastic packaging, when by far it’s one of the companies that could afford to invest in non-plastic packaging alternatives like Flexi-Hex. ‘Reducing it substantially’ is not the same as not using it all, especially considering the huge numbers of deliveries sent out each day.
- Amazon is of course killing off local indie stores, with around a third of the entire online market, and nearly 90% of people buying on a regular basis.
Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos is (at time of writing) the third wealthiest person on earth (behind Elon Musk). But the surprising fact (considering he has sucked all the creativity out of visiting an indie bookshop) is that he attended a Montessori school. These (private) schools have children who don’t use computers until much later on, and are designed to raise artistic and free-thinking adults (as far away from ‘clone-like superstores’ as you can get. And Jeff regularly donates to Montessori causes?
