Cost v Value…or ‘how much is too much?’
Posted under Material things I love, Witterings
I have recently rediscovered the delicious treat of buying books from a Real Bookshop, one with walls and shelves and books which you take home in a bag, not books that Postman Andy delivers in boxes branded ‘Amazon’. I love Amazon, don’t get me wrong, I love it for its speed, its range and, of course, its prices. There is no way around the fact that buying books from a bookshop and, especially, a local independent bookshop is substantially more expensive than having a quick Amazon fix. And my local bookshop is an indepedent; nothing is discounted, no ‘buy 2 get 1 free’ offers. You pay the price that’s printed on the back of the book, no exceptions.
When you look at the figures it’s hard to justify my new found love. A recent trip resulted in Sex & Stravinsky (Barbara Trapido), The Secret Intensity of Everyday Living (William Nicholson) and The Man Who Disappeared (Clare Morrall). Cost? £27.97. Ouch. The Trapido was £11.99, kind of pricey for a paperback? Cost via Amazon? £17.14. I can’t be bothered with the maths but even a total maths dunce like me can see that a book fix of £17.14 is a long, long way from one costing £27.97.
But then how do you account for the ‘value’ of shopping in a bricks and mortar shop, the pleasure of browsing…picking books up, rifling through them…letting yourself be entranced by beautiful covers or typeface…being persuaded by personal recommendation…picking up what other people seem to be drawn to. All those elements have a value that are above mere ‘cost’. But is it worth the additional spend?
Our local bookshop is small, so every inch of the shop has to earn its keep. But the owner, and the staff, are all passionate about books and seem to have a knack of presenting their wares in a way which means I absolutely CANNOT leave the store without at least one or two books I had no intention of buying. The back of the shop is a coffee shop, of course, and the rest of the shop is lined with shelves with the exception of two large round tables. The tables are my downfall. The tables are the shop’s ‘candy’ as far as I’m concerned…a rotating presentation of new books, themed books (currently cool camping/caravaning, sewing, crochet, knitting, crafting etc etc), topical books, local books, seasonal books. The tables, plus a small selection of ‘recommended by our staff’ are the shop’s only ‘hard sell’ opportunity really although their window presentations are exceptionally appealing. Their final punch in the stomach is by the till, ‘This month we are reading’ and a copy of the shop’s book club’s ‘book of the month’. I’ve been ‘had’ at least twice that way…both happy experiences I am delighted to say.
Without doubt the shop experience delivers a value to me. I’ve read books I never would have even considered on Amazon as a result of their careful presentation. I bought books as gifts which I never would have stumbled across on Amazon, and which have been huge hits. I’ve spent a number of carefree half an hour or so browsing which online shopping can never compare with. Plus, whilst Amazon is quick, nothing compares to the adrenalin ‘high’ you get from walking out of the shop clutching your purchases immediately.
What I can’t decide though is…’how much is too much’? How much of a premium am I prepared to pay for the ‘value’ offered by the whole experience of shopping in a local bookshop? £27.97 compared with £17.14 seems painfully expensive. But, then, I didn’t know Barbara Trapido (one of my very favourite authors) had published a new novel and I was so excited to happen upon it on one of the Siren Tables and it’s a total winner. The other two were bought on impulse. I’m ploughing through The Secret Intensity of Everyday Living and thus far it’s not earning a place on my ‘to keep forever’ shelf. A bit disappointing to be honest.
A few days later two other books had found their way on to my Amazon wish list, on the recommendation of Grethic. I mulled on it for a few days and decided to see if the local bookshop stored them and, if they did, I would buy them there. In fact neither Wild Swimming (Daniel Start) nor Wild Swim (Kate Rew) were on the shelves. I could have ordered them of course, but there was a nagging sense that I would end up ‘overpaying’ for them without having had the ‘value added’ experience of either just happening upon them whilst browsing, or having the pleasure of an ‘immediate hit’.
A quick search on Amazon showed I will save myself £10.01 if I buy from them, rather than the local bookstore. Around 50% in fact.
I’m so undecided on the whole ‘cost v value’ issue that I haven’t bought them at all. Perhaps I’ll try the library and save myself the moral dilemma! Of course none of my musings have touched on the value of a local independent that goes beyond my own, personal gain. Because there is a wider, community value of shopping locally without a doubt. And if you choose to live in a small town, as I do, do you have a responsibility to be part of keeping local business alive? Hmmm.
I don’t have the answer. I can’t decide whether to stop buying on Amazon and either suck up the cost of buying locally, or limit my purchases to ‘essentials’ and perhaps making better use of the library and the Oxfam secondhand bookshop which is opposite. Or find a kind of happy medium…perhaps Amazon for Things I Know I Want…and local bookshop for ‘browsing hits and gifts’.
What do you do? I would hate not to have access to wonderful, thoughtful independent bookshops…but can I afford to shop there consistently? Or is the value added so great that, in fact, we as a community can’t really afford not to?
Discuss.
That Oxfam bookshop is my Mecca. It’s jolly rare that I don’t buy something from there when I’m home. I don’t buy from the bookshop you’re writing about here – though it is, of course, very nice (and has a better range than the ‘other’ independent up the road). But I often have a good ol’ browse in there though. (I avoid WH Smith cos they don’t shelve their books alphabetically – ridiculous!).
I do agree that it’s important to support local shops. If I had the cash (I’m a recent student (of five years), now unemployed) I probably would treat myself to a full price book from time-to-time: share the wealth, as it were, which helps everyone in the long term. But sadly I don’t.
I’m not sure what I’m trying to say with this comment. Perhaps assuage my guilt for always going for the cheap option? I guess I was just delighted to read something about our home town (it’s your’s now too Spud, you’ve been there long enough now :D)!
As an aside, my brother used to work there and occasionally brought home shop-soiled books. Which were always gratefully received, of course. ;)
Hej Spud,
Maybe you should look at it from another angle. If you still lived in London, you probably would go out from coffees, lunches and all the other city-stuff you do when you are without kids!!!!
Now you live in a small town and all the daily citylife extravaganze is gone. Conclusion, you deserve a book from time to time. So if your bookstore has it on their shelve enjoy the buying process, if they haven’t enjoy the luxury of amazon. I would say a win-win situation.
Have a lovely saturday evening.
I use Amazon, like you say – the price comparison is well no comparison, but there is nothing quite like the smell of a new book (yes I am the woman opening and sniffing new books in our local bookshop) or trawling through pre-used very old first editions!
Fab post!
I say both have value.
I would buy from the independant whenever I was there, but order specifics from Amazon. That way your wallet and your senses are looked after.
Hmmm, I have this argument with myself frequently. I tend to do most of shopping online from the point of convenience at this moment in time but I’m all for supporting local business. I’m petrified of my child(ren) growing up to no real physical shops and the effect this could have on society as a whole…
I say treat yourself once in a while as a pure indulgence :)
There’s nothing to compare to browsing the shelves of a real bookstore… one that’s lovingly cared for by the resident bibliophiles. I can spend hours there… well worth the “price of admission” when compared to what it would cost to go to the movie theater. I go every so often as a “special treat” to myself… to celebrate a success, cheer myself up, or simply to prepare for an upcoming vacation. As such, I have a hard time envisioning trading in the textured pages of a real book for a Kindle reader, or the like.
With the amount of books I buy, both from Amazon and Waterstones, I should have written this post ages ago, but I’m glad you did it first because you did it much better.
I absolutely love bookshops, they are my favourite places in the world, I go for a walk to the huge Waterstones that’s around the corner from my work (Persephone Books, which is around the other corner, I largely ignore, but that’s a different story) The huge advantage of buying at the shop is that you can actually pick up a book, FEEL it, read from it before you buy. And you’re right, there is nothing like walking out with a book in your hand and flicking through it on the way to back, that really beats Amazon.
Saying that, as someone who has to take care of her own budget, I have given Amazon lots of business over the past few years. They are always cheaper and at least until prices of food and my PhD fees go down, I’ll keep buying from them.
I have to admit to a real crime: I’ve recently started going to Waterstones to select books, I flick through them, and then buy them from Amazon anyway. To save money. But then again I would never do that at Albion Beatnik, the loveliest independent bookshop in the world, where every hand picked book is a gem, where the owner goes out of his way to get books from America if they are worth it, where even though coffee isn’t that great I always meet Blanca when I’m in Oxford and the owner actually recognised us last time we were there a couple of weeks ago… I have never left this shop empty handed and I don’t mind at all!! It’s the experience that’s worth much more than money!!
How about we all, UK bloggers, you, me, Beth, Blanca meet up at Albion Beatnik for a mini blog camp sometime before the winter?? I know it’s a long way for you but perhaps we could arrange a weekend before it gets really cold? What do you think??
I actually have stopped purchasing books as a whole. I have found myself out of room on my shelf, and I have a few volumes that I should donate… I absolutely love the library and I am not saddled with the burden of figuring out what to do with books that I don’t call keepers… All that aside – I can spend hours in a book store browsing the shelves and I especially love the smaller locally owned shops. They have such character! So in summation, I read mostly from the library, I buy from local shops (and amittedly, larger chains depending on my route into town), and if I am really feeling indulgent, I download purchases onto my phone for reading whenever I possibly have a moment. That is my least favorite, but the absolute fastest and most convenient…
We use Amazon, as you suggest, for books we know we want and for those that are hard to find.
But real bookshops?
We’re lucky in that our town has a wonderful, independent, children’s bookshop and there we browse.
There the children choose a book each week, and we spend “over the odds” buying these and the countess others that have caught our eye while we explore the shelves alongside them.
There amongst the brightly coloured picture books, and the tales I remember from my own childhood, the poetry and the simple science, I have learned again the true value of a bookshop, in the glowing, delighted eyes of my sons, which grow ever wider in wonder at the world that opens up ahead of them.
oh, i *heart* your blog. and the photo…i’m drawn to the handwritten notes one cannot quite make out in this photo.
i don’t live close to enough bookstores, so i go out of my way to find them. might not be able to go so far as to get to the bookshop in your blog, though.
best,
sherry
i know that dilemma. we have a special situation in germany though, were prices for books are fixed. they cost the same from amazon or an independent bookshop, no exceptions (the fixed prices system was implemented to protect small bookshops and publishers). however, price variations do apply to imported books, so i do compare prices when buying english language books.
in that case, my decision purely depends on my means at any given time. when i can, i’m happy to pay more. if i am spending 10 euro more, i would make myself think what else i might be easily spending 10 euro for, just frittering it away. then, 10 euro extra for a conscious purchase don’t seem too much.
Have you seen these two articles on Amazon:
http://www.thenation.com/article/37484/trouble-amazon?page=0,1
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/76586/the-read-in-defense-amazon
More food for thought!
Saw this blog. Some interesting thoughts about how local bookshops could turn some of their social/community attributes into cash:-
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/11/local-bookstores-social-hubs-and-mutualization/
[...] [4] The debate over Kindle versus the classic book is still undecided. I personally like the feel of real books, but can see the convenience of a Kindle while traveling. This debate replaces the older one: the battle of Amazon or large-scale books stores versus the local book store. This is something that JG of Spudballoo wrote about this week in her post “Cost v Value…or how much is too much?” [...]
Hope you don’t mind a comment many months later but I just saw this.
I have a local bookshop which is dying. I blogged about it recently, http://whenyouarethatwoman.blogspot.com/2011/02/big-green-love.html
I really know what you mean, re: the how much is too much, ours too doesn’t deep discount or 2 for 3. They do seem to provide something for the community though, a sense of belonging amongst the smell of real books you can touch and stroke.
Ah, rats. Just saw the no follow free thing. I’m new to blogging and don’t really understand it. Anyway, I hope I haven’t broken some etiquette with a link, it was more to show as a new reader on your site, that the same issues are still around for me (ie not a shameless plug).