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This data flies in the face of every other survey I’ve ever seen.

I know what you mean, I had a similar reaction. It’s possible that the methodology used by Flurry skews the results in a major way. I’m not familiar enough with their methodology. However, I do think that the three factors I suggested might explain this, especially the global/universal sample they’re apparently using. There are, for instance, (hundreds of) millions of users who would never get into a Pew study whose behaviour will be very different from what we’re used to. A lot of them are in countries which missed the PC revolution and are using their smartphones for things we would do on other devices.

An example is India: not only is there a big uptake of smartphones, but they’re big ebook downloaders (with probably few e-ink Kindle users), and ebooks have helped to solve another big problem, namely a broken distribution system for printed books.

All of that said, this survey is certainly something of an outlier as far as books go and I’d like to see more data to try to understand what’s going on here.

Agreed, and that is why I felt it best to have 4 online stores, each with a unique specialty in our area of interest (Australian history). To ensure when a Customer lands on one of our sites, they really only see the subject they came for, not forcing them to search around other genres (not a bad thing, but i just prefer to go to specialty sites when i shop, and wanted to offer the same).

Offer good titles (sometimes being a specialty you can offer books off the mainstream, many big stores don’t bother with). I mix it up with new & used books, and give the best service I can 7 days a week. You can’t give books away for free, but you can give free 5 star service to everyone who helps you, by shopping at your store. I always look at it this way, they could have easily gone somewhere else, and I appreciate every Customer I get for that reason. We help each-other!

And it is also very true: “The very different requirements, skill sets, and extra investment needed for ebooks can end up reducing the quality and focus on the print offering”.

Spending money on having a small selection of digital books to be ‘part of the crowd’ could potentially take your capital & time away from being the best bookstore for printed books you could be.

Thanks for allowing me the space to ramble all the way from Australia!

With so many people on social networks, having a share button for at least the top few social sites is a great idea. Makes a good option for satisfied Customers to pass on the word about their purchase, and let’s other in their network know you exist.

I think the navigation of a website is the most important of all. I am not sure if it is a lack of time or patience, but visitors spend literally seconds on websites, then they are gone if what they want is not right there. Don’t make it harder for them to shop. Neat, uncluttered pages with unique content for both the visitor and search engines, is one of the most crucial things for any online business. If they can’t find it, they can’t buy it, and the search engines can’t spider it and place it in search for you either.

But there is another option, which isn’t going against or with, step aside and let the big stores compete and combine to offer all the very latest versions of reading, and stay a specialty store. You sells books, so sell them. If the Customer wants a digital version, you don’t get that sale, but you may not have anyway, especially if you are only offering a small % (or token range) of ebooks anyway.
I prefer to stay in the field i started, and that is paper books, the one’s you can touch and hold, and place on a shelf for future reading or collecting, or passing down if rare or for sentimental reasons. I don’t want to lose focus of why i started, and i am sure other bookstores/online/off feel the same. I love books (the paper kind), and i am here for those Customer who do also, and want to keep it that way, even if as the years pass, the old paper book do get a little less loved over the digital version.

I know this reply may not follow the exact flow of the article, but sometimes you have to remember why you started selling books, and ensure your love of that is not taken away in the need to compete on every new level. That counts also.

That said, one of the brightest lights on the ‘new opportunities’ horizon is publishing/selling to vertical communities which is likely to be very much this Apple Store approach. The needs of online marketing will drive this since it’s harder to build an audience online if it’s too general. The big, broad-based publishers (and bookseller chains) will find this, if they haven’t already. One of things that gave me a chuckle about the Random Penguin merger was the argument that the greater scale would help them compete in emerging digital markets. In fact, the opposite is true for digital, for now at least, opening the way for new entrants since big players almost invariably find it hard to organise along these many vertical lines.