网络时代书店面临的窘境

THESE are not easy times for booksellers. Borders, a big American one, ditched its boss in January and has closed stores, but is still at risk of collapse, some analysts say. The British chain of the same name, which it once owned, failed last year. Barnes & Noble, the world’s biggest bookseller, appointed a new boss last month to help it confront the triple threat of the recession, increased competition and e-books.

对书店来说，这是个艰难的时代。美国大型书店博德斯在一月份解雇了它的总裁，而且此时已经关闭了部分店面，但是分析家说，博德斯仍然有破产的危险。曾属博德斯旗下且同叫此名的英国连锁书店已于去年倒闭。世界上最大的书店巴恩斯-诺博在上月任命了一个新总裁，来帮助自己面对经济萧条、不断增加的竞争和电子图书这三重威胁。

The struggles of booksellers can be explained in part by a surge in competition. More than half of book sales in America take place not in bookshops but at big retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target, which compete to peddle bestsellers at ever steeper discounts. Online retailers, too, are wreaking havoc. In 2009 Amazon sold 19% of printed books in North America, reckons Credit Suisse, compared with Barnes & Noble’s 17% and Borders’ 10%. By 2015, the bank estimates, Amazon will sell 28%.

书店的挣扎可以部分解释为竞争的急剧剧烈。美国有超过半数的图书销售不是发生在书店，而是在大的零售卖场，像沃尔玛和塔吉特超市，这些商家竞相以不断加大的折扣来兜售畅销书。网上的零售商同样在制造大破坏。据瑞士信贷估计，亚马逊在2009年卖掉了北美19%的纸质图书，相比巴恩斯-诺博的17%和博德斯的10%。该银行预计，到2015年，亚马逊的纸质图书销售将占28%。

Booksellers are labouring to raise their profile online and win back the customers they have lost. Barnes & Noble’s online sales rose by 32% to $210m in the quarter ending in January, compared with a year earlier. It has started selling its own e-reader, called the “Nook”, and digital books to go with it.

为了赢回失去的顾客，各大书店正在提升自己在网上的认知度。截至到一月的一个季度之内，巴恩斯-诺博的网上销售量和一年前同比提升了32%，达到2.1亿美元，并且开始销售自己的电子阅读器“努克”和与之配套的电子书。

Will bookshops disappear completely, as music shops seem to be doing? Most are pinning their hopes on giving people more reasons to come inside. “Consumers will need some entity to help them make sense of the morass,” says William Lynch, the new boss of Barnes & Noble, which plans to put a renewed emphasis on service, including advice on e-books. Many shops have started to offer free internet access to keep customers there longer and to enable them to download e-books. Other survival strategies include hosting book clubs or other community groups and selling a wider variety of goods, such as wrapping paper, jewellery, cards and toys.

书店会完全消失吗，就像唱片店正在面临的处境那样？许多书店都寄希望于更多地给出让人们走进书店的理由。“消费者得需要一些实在的东西才能不让自己在这片混乱中迷失”，巴恩斯-诺博的新总裁威廉·林奇说。这家书店计划把重心放到更新的服务上，其中包括关于电子书的建议。为了让顾客能更久地待在书店，很多书店已经开始提供免费的上网服务，并且允许他们下载电子书。其它的生存策略包括主办图书俱乐部或是其它的社区群体，卖更多种类的物品，像包装纸、珠宝、卡片和玩具。更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

Independent bookshops face a particularly grave threat, because they are unable to match bigger rivals’ prices. Many are branching out by offering new services, such as creative-writing classes. BookPeople, a bookshop in Austin, Texas, runs a literary summer camp for around 450 children. Steve Bercu, the shop’s co-owner, says that independent booksellers can still thrive, provided they “reinvent themselves”.

独立书店面临的威胁尤其严重，因为它们无法与更大的竞争对手拼价格。许多独立书店正在扩大服务范围，比如开办创意写作班。德克萨斯州奥斯丁市的“书·人”书店举办了一个有450个左右的孩子参加的文学夏令营。书店的合有者之一史蒂夫·博苏说，独立书店仍然能活得很好，只要它们“重新改造自己”。