Will 'Showrooming' Kill Local Bookstores?

Last week, the New York Times reported the findings of a survey that confirmed bookstore owners’ “lurking suspicion” – many customers will browse books in a shop, but purchase them for much cheaper on Amazon.com.

The Times called it “showrooming,” and cited a Codex Group survey from October that found 39 percent of people who bought books from Amazon had previously looked at the same books in a brick-and-mortar shop.

Yesterday, Emma Straub, an employee at Cobble Hill’s BookCourt, railed against Amazon’s tactics against bookstores in an piece for Time Magazine. Straub calls herself the “resident cheer-squad” at BookCourt, and says that it is the personal touch at her store, and other independent bookstores, that makes it worth it to spend a few more bucks.

According to Straub, Amazon’s Price Check app allows customers to scan the barcode of a book they pick up in a shop and immediately see a lower price on Amazon’s web site. She called this “selling the bookstores out for a better deal.”

“The general idea is that customers have started to use the bookstore as a place to handle, but not purchase, merchandise, like a Ferrari dealership, where you don’t actually expect to drive one home off the lot,” Straub wrote. 

And while BookCourt has evolved throughout the years (), Straub worried that small, local businesses may not be able to take the hit from cheaper online retailers.

Last week, the New York Daily News reported on the closure of Books in the Hood, the Bronx’s last independent bookstore. A popular place for neighborhood children, the shop closed due to financial troubles.