National Figures Show Independents Hold Market Share in a Flat Market

While the story of last year's adult trade sales does not have a particularly happy ending for the nation's bookstores, the news was not uniformly bad for independents, according to Ipsos BookTrends. In the April/May issue of the Ipsos Ideas' newsletter, Ipsos' Barrie Rappaport wrote that "the U.S. Book market is flat. Annual growth for general trade print books has been barely keeping pace with population growth rates." While growth was somewhat better between 1992 - 1996, she noted that "[it] has trailed off over the past five years."

However, examining where adult trade books were purchased, there was a heartening update for independents, as the statistics show that the "independent/small chain bookstores" distribution channel represented 15.5 percent of units purchased during 2002. This marks the fourth year in a row that independents have held market share and, in fact, represents a modest increase over the 14.8 percent unit market share of 2001. "We believe that these numbers are a heartening signal that the innovations undertaken by independent booksellers -- particularly the national Book Sense marketing program -- have resonated with consumers, who clearly value the depth of knowledge and commitment to books that they find in their local independents," said ABA CEO Avin Mark Domnitz.

Rappaport told BTW that "in past years our research has shown that independents do have highly loyal customers, relative to the industry." Independent booksellers had the second highest "channel loyalty" in the industry, according to BookTrends' data, with book clubs garnering the highest loyalty, which is perhaps not surprising given the contractual nature of club membership.

For the industry, however, the issue of a flat overall market continues. For the period of 1992 - 2002, the demand for general adult trade print books showed only a 2.4 percent unit growth and a 4.0 percent dollar growth. However, for the period between 1997 - 2002, unit and dollar growth were both only 1.3 percent. (This came during a period that saw a 1.2 percent compound annual growth rate in the U.S. population.)

Ipsos' newsletter noted the sobering fact that "the publishing industry has steadily lost customers over the past several years. Only a lift in the buying rate and spending among the existing customer base has prevented the industry from slipping into a negative growth trend." While just over 60 percent of American households bought at least one adult trade book in 1997, by 2002 the figure had fallen to 55.1 percent of households. However, each household was buying more books in 2002, as the book-buying households shopped for books approximately seven times during the year, spending nearly $25 each time.

Looking at the demographics of book-buying households, the Ipsos data showed that "in 2002, the percentage of books purchased by households with annual incomes above $50,000 continued to be above the representation in the population -- though to a lesser degree compared to 1995. In short, these households have been shopping for books less often and have cut back on their spending."

Ipsos BookTrends data are compiled from information gathered monthly from a panel of 16,000 nationally representative households that maintain daily purchase diaries. --Dan Cullen