Local bookstores have a new weapon in the fight with Amazon

(The article sums up a lot of this, but the actual website is more misleading)<p>I went through and clicked on the about page. The books aren&#x27;t sold through local book stores. It&#x27;s a front for Ingram, which handles the orders. The local bookstores that sign up as affiliates get a percentage of the sale, basically as referrers.<p>I&#x27;d love to see this as a search-model that drives to the actual stores, but it seems that would be much more difficult to implement with arbitrary stocking information. In its current state the site represents itself as a method of shopping local, borrowing its respectability from the local stores.

This could potentially enable what I always thought the final model will look like: you go into a store, find the book, point an app at its store-specific barcode, and you get it physically delivered or saved as ebook - the store makes a percentage but prices can still be competitive with Amazon, and everybody is happy. If you really want to take the book home on the same day, an extra fee is added (to pay for traditional stocking costs).<p>You could even do it without custom barcodes, just with some geofencing or wifi identification. At worst, with a dedicated touchscreen device in-store.<p>Alas, i’ve repeated this idea everywhere for years and nobody in the industry seems to have latched on it yet, so maybe something I don’t know about the industry makes it unviable ️

This sounds similar to hive.co.uk they offer profit sharing with a bookshop of your choice and you can pick up your purchase from a local bookshop.

Storefronts are becoming the discovery location, while sales shift online. In the past few months I’ve had more than one staple household purchase disappear from grocery shelves to require us to buy from Amazon. It makes sense - stores now charge something like $250k for stocking&#x2F;shelf space fees. Bookstores have a different structure, but I hope to see more online warehouses show up to rival Amazon, because scalpers do enjoy hiking prices there whenever something is out of stock elsewhere.

I use <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bookfinder.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bookfinder.com</a> to search for paper books. Sometimes I dropship them to a scan-service and for 20-30 USD I could get a decent PDF scan of the book.<p>This has worked very well for older books too. Prices are much better than amazon and you save a book from the landfill.

Stores just can&#x27;t carry that many books.<p>I haven&#x27;t used amazon since a few years but when I was looking for a book, I ultimately had to order online. No option.<p>What would&#x27;ve been best is go to a store and they&#x27;ll deliver ur book at your home in the evening if they don&#x27;t have a copy handy<p>Till the happens stores will find it hard to compete with Amazon who does essentially that

By far most of the books I buy are from thrift stores, and the sales the public library does. It&#x27;s not unusual for me to come home with a shopping bag full of books.

Will they really be able to compete with Amazon pricing and free shipping? And pay affiliates out of a remaining margin?<p>I suspect not.

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Speaking as a consumer, it would be nicer if we could cut out the middleman entirely, though.

alibris.com already does this and it&#x27;s pretty dang good. I buy all my physical books through them