The identity crisis in campus bookstores about which I recently wrote is nothing, of course, compared to that experienced in bookstores, at large. For as long as I remember, there has been no full-service independent bookstore in Lethbridge, Alberta, our little city of 80,000. Chapters long ago ran off its competition here, but that modest operation was only ever twelve to eighteen shelves attached to a popular coffee shop. Like all independents, it found that the margins were tight on bestsellers, and it could never hold the catalogue depth necessary to compete with online services.
The joy of the independent bookstore, like the joy of the independent music store, is in its ability to feature the new and the unknown. As intuitive as Amazon's "Customers Who Bought This Might Enjoy That" has become, there will never be a substitute for the "Staff Picks" section. I enjoyed visiting Audreys Books on Jasper Avenue in Edmonton recently, where I bought Daniel Coleman's In Bed With The Word. Dr. Coleman is my age, roughly, and this book is personal, reflective; it is the kind of book one associates with the seasoned scholars I guess we are becoming (or have now become). In any case, it is neither the kind of book I would expect simply to stumble across on the 'net nor the kind of thing a brick and mortar store would here stock, even our university bookstore. I was happy to give my money to Audreys.
Supporting brick and mortar bookstores is a good thing, for even chain stores employ local people, people who can build expertise and serve the local community. But what do you do when the Costco, Save On, and WalMart can compete with Chapters on selection and price? Is there any value in spreading your money around when only bestsellers seem to matter, even to Chapters? And what kind of premium should we pay for brick and mortar? So many of the books I need would have to be special ordered, at greater price and taking far more time than ordering them myself on the 'net.
Where this leads is the insanity of Chapters competing with itself, pitting its brick and mortar operation against its e-store. I recently purchased a compendium of John Updike's "Rabbit" novels. Local stores did not carry it. When it arrived from Chapters.ca, it was damaged. I was happy to see that it could be returned to my local store, but it could not be exchanged because, of course, it was still not in stock. The store did have a two-volume set, books that would have cost twenty dollars more. Should I have spent the extra money for the convenience of not having to wait longer, for the sake of the salary of the nice woman at the cash who still could not "make right" my experience? I could not get credit for the list price, the price I would have paid at the store, and I could not get the online discount for the books they did have in stock. So, the brick and mortar store gave me a refund for the amount I paid online, and they advised me to order the item from the internet once more. They could not even order me the book at that price: if they brought in it for me, it would have to be at the list price. There was no way that I could replace my damaged book without paying more money, after I had to pay twice for shipping and handling, so I took my refund and ordered it from their competition.
Chapters.ca operates in order to compete with Amazon. The former is, essentially, separate from its brick and mortar operation, as I found out. This recent brush with bookseller bureaucracy is enough to make a stone of the heart. Those of us without excellent independent bookstores just need to keep looking for the best price, I think. Online bookstores, especially the sites that link us with used bookstores all over the world, have been a godsend. I will support brick and mortar when I can, even the chains, but it is getting harder and harder to do so.
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