First signs of a slight decline in secondhand bookshops in Britain

For those unaware of &quot;Driff&quot;: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Driff_Field" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Driff_Field</a><p>(He&#x27;s still alive and kicking. I bought a secondhand book from a random eBay seller the other year and it turned out to be him. Quite a shock.)<p>That aside: I find it hard to believe the assertion that &quot;the number of second-hand bookshops in the UK had increased by about 25% over a thirty year period&quot;. All the areas with which I&#x27;m particularly familiar saw a notable decline in this period (some almost precipitous, such as Oxford or Uppingham). My gut feeling is that Driff&#x27;s 80s guides were not as comprehensive as the poster believes, and that the advent of the internet has made it much easier to compile complete, crowdsourced directories such as thebookguide.info.

I don&#x27;t know much about the book industry specifically, but I&#x27;d be worried about the viability of second hand book shops in street-level retail environments because of rapidly rising commercial rents in many big cities.<p>The revenue brought in by a second hand book store may be sustainable in a much smaller city with static&#x2F;non rising commercial rents, but when a commercial landlord looks at lease renewal and decides they can get a whole lot more money if somebody converts the place into a small restaurant, coffee shop or (other) retail...

I recently visited Paris for work and was struck by the number and quality of small local book shops, often seeming to specialize in one thing or another, as compared to where I live (SF). Prior to that I had always thought that SF had a lot compared to elsewhere.

In Japan, as elsewhere, bookstores in general are facing hard times [1, in Japanese], but the Kanda-Jimbochō area in central Tokyo has somehow managed to keep over a hundred shops in business. Most of the area was aggressively redeveloped when land prices shot up during the late 1980s and redevelopment has continued since, but the bookshops have held on. Some of the shops at street level are visible on Google Streetview [2]. More photos at [3].<p>I live in Yokohama and used to go to Kanda-Jimbochō regularly, but I haven’t been there since COVID. The photos make me nostalgic.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nikkei.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;DGXZQOUF110700R11C22A0000000&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nikkei.com&#x2F;article&#x2F;DGXZQOUF110700R11C22A0000000&#x2F;</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bit.ly&#x2F;3MuNoh2" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bit.ly&#x2F;3MuNoh2</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.jimbou.info&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.jimbou.info&#x2F;</a>

Interesting. Does anyone know of any comprehensive resource that can give a number for the US? I&#x27;d be very surprised if the situation were the same (although if it were it would be a nice pick-me-up), and I&#x27;d be interested in speculating on why the US and Britain might be different. Could it be directly blamed on the degree of penetration of Amazon or Amazon Prime?

Juxtaposed with news of huge layoffs from meta, Amazon and Intel, this headline feels like something from The Onion.<p>Alas our prime minister seems determined to outdo the US when it comes to recession. &quot;Hold my beer...&quot;

Isn&#x27;t this just like other industries coming off a high (computer sales for example) due to the pandemic? Obviously book sales were up, they couldn&#x27;t stay there forever.

Was just thinking about the economics of those &quot;spirit of halloween&quot; stores being a short term tenant of last resort for REITs and other property management firms, and if there were a way to do it for used and returned books, it could improve street life and sustain or raise the property value of the locations. Instead of promoting them as garbage outlets like discount book stores do, it could be somewhere welcoming.

The cost of power in the UK at the moment is going to put pressure on every kind of bricks and mortar store.

99% of those bookshops are in Hay-on-Wye

The key point is that they note a significant increase over the last 40 years.<p>But with what has happened over the last 2 years it is not surprised that the numbers have dropped in the last 12 months.

This is most likely due to the growing influence of amazon. Probably first place most people look when buying a book.