Bookstore Chain

What is a Bookstore Chain?

A bookstore chain is a large scale bookstore that typically prioritizes quantity of books sold and distributed over the reader's personal experience in their store. Some examples include Barnes & Noble and Half Price Books, which are both popular and prominent bookstore chains in the U.S.

Benefits of a Bookstore Chain

Primarily, bookstore chains are the most effective way to sell high quantities of books in a quick, efficient way and make significant profit. They are usually the most accessible to a wide audience, have consistent management, typically result in lower prices, and have a way to quickly distribute to a wide geographical market. In terms of efficiency and distributing the most books possible to as large of an audience as possible, they are extremely effective. This is clearly seen through bookstores such as Barnes & Noble, which have accumulated huge profits through this type of selling method.

Drawbacks of a Bookstore Chain

Bookstore chains, although popular, do have their limitations. These stores are usually standardized across all of their stores and locations, meaning every single one is almost exactly the same in the books they have available, the ambience of the store, and the prices in that store. In other geographic locations, this can severely limit the ability of that bookstore to reach the local community because of different local tastes and culture. Furthermore, it is often significantly harder to find niche fiction books at these large bookstore chains; typically, they tend to promote whatever sells the most, which is mainstream media, such as extremely popular fiction, celebrity biographies, and cook books.

Bookstore Chains vs Independent Bookstores

Compared to the rigidity of bookstore chains, independent bookstores bring much more flexibility and freedom to the market of bookselling. An independent bookstore, unlike chains, can choose to sell books that they find interesting and fit with their genre preferences or values, no matter their popularity. The owner of the bookstore chooses what they want to have on the shelves, rather than letting the reader's demand decide for them. While this might not result in maximum profit for the bookseller, indie (independent) bookstores are actually seeing an increase in popularity due to growing desires to buy locally. Buying locally also returns profit to the community itself, which shopping on amazon or Barnes & Noble wouldn't do. Additionally, independent bookstores also have the ability to curate their books to fit with the taste of the local community, rather than creating a generalized system for everywhere. However, independent bookstores usually only have one or a handful of stores, and are not applicable to a wider global market.