Wall Street liked Amazon's third-quarter results: on Friday the e-tailer's stock closed up 25% at $118.49, a record high (accounting for stock splits), on volume of 58.3 million shares compared to a recent daily average of 7.5 million shares.
At least five brokerage houses upgraded the stock, according to the Wall Street Journal. "The bullishness is a turnabout from 2005 and 2006, when Wall Street criticized Amazon for spending heavily on free shipping offers and digital initiatives such as Web services. In mid-2006, the stock traded at about $30, its lowest level since the dot-com bust."
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In the can't win department, a Credit Suisse analyst downgraded Barnes & Noble, saying that "the shift to digital from physical books will ultimately hurt traditional brick-and-mortar book sellers," the Associated Press said. (Many had earlier criticized the retailer for not offering an e-reader.) Referring to company's new e-reader, introduced this past week, Gary Balter wrote: "As the math currently works, each sale through a Nook is not just unprofitable but potentially replaces a higher-margin sale at stores."
And Goldman Sachs analyst Matthew Fassler wrote that the move to digital formats "clearly challenges Barnes & Noble's store-based model."
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A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article about the price wars notes an unusual twist that applies in Wisconsin: "Wal-Mart and Target won't ship the below-cost books to customers here because of the state's law banning retailers from selling merchandise below their cost. Amazon's Web site, however, was accepting orders from Wisconsin."
The paper wrote that local booksellers said "the price war is more troubling for the harm it can do to the publishing industry than it would be for them. They note that people who are likely to take advantage of the deals online probably are not their customers."
For example, Daniel Goldin, owner of Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee, said, "I'm not sure how it helps consumers to have people pricing at a loss. In the short term, it's good. In the long term, I'm not sure."
"There's no way I can compete on price, so why should I try?" Norm Bruce, co-owner of Martha Merrell's Bookstore, Waukesha, told the Journal Sentinel.
And Lanora Hurley, owner of Next Chapter Bookshop, Mequon, indicated she was buying some titles from Amazon: "It's a better deal for me to get them from Amazon and sell them here."
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Thomas Upchurch, co-owner of Capitol Book & News, Montgomery,
Ala., "has all but sworn off best-selling books," according to the Montgomery Advertiser, which observed that bestsellers "rarely translate into any profit for an independent bookstore."
"It
has been going on for a long time," he said. "We have really had to
change our marketing in the last four or five years so we do not depend
on best-sellers. . . . It is not something we are going to sell anyway.
They could give away books, and it is not going to hurt us more."
The Advertiser
noted that as big box retailers keep lowering the price on select
bestsellers, "Upchurch may not like it, but he knows that is part of
doing business in the modern world. Still, he admits it is a personal
blow to see his treasured books reduced to an impersonal level."
"They
are not making money on it," he said. "They are taking a product that
means everything to us and cheapening it in the eyes of the customer.
That convinces the customer that the book may not be worth $20; maybe
it is only worth $12."
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Indies north of the border are facing challenges as well, but the Free Press
reported that Patty Reedyk, owner of Polar Peek Books and Treasures,
Fernie, B.C., said that "independence has its advantages."
"There
is a lot of competition out there because of Fernie's proximity to
other places like the United States, Calgary, Cranbrook and
Lethbridge," she noted. "People like saving money--it is challenging to
keep customers here and to have them understand why shopping locally is
important. . . . I believe in books, I believe in literature. . . . I
really like being here. I love books and I like people--this is a place
where people meet, there are a lot of nice people who come in here."
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Bad economic times have been good news for the Book Mark Paperback Book Exchange, Escondido, Calif.
"I had a tremendous summer," owner Elaine Fitzgerald told the North Country Times. "We had people coming down from L.A., from out in the desert, up from San Diego, from all over."
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"If everything goes according to plan," Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill,
N.C., will open next month and "the big empty space next Foster's
Market on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. will be filled to the brim with
books and alive with browsers, buyers, children and authors," the Chapel Hill News reported.
Jamie
Fiocco, co-owner of Flyleaf with Land Arnold and Sarah Carr--all of
whom formerly worked for McIntyre's Fine Books, Pittsboro--recalled
that the trio "were looking for something new to do, something that
would keep us in the book business and in the area. The owner of this
shopping center, Ron Strom, was looking for an independent business to
anchor it. He asked whether McIntyre's would be interested in opening a
location here. McIntyre's passed, and I said, 'Well, I might be
interested.'"
"This is a university community without an independent bookstore," Arnold added. "That's not right."
"We
tried everything we could think of not to do it," Fiocco said. "But it
became a perfect storm, and everything kept steering us to do this. We
think this is the right time, the right place and the right community.
There's so much literary history here, and Chapel and Carrboro get the
'buy local, be involved' style we believe in."
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As part of its Best of NYC feature, the Village Voice
asked author Julie Klam to pick a few of her favorite things, including
best bookstore: "I feel like the answer to this is any bookstore that
is still open and stocking books, but my personal favorite, although
it's not even in my borough, is Book Court," she responded. "There is a
magical reading space with a skylight, in which REAL ACTUAL SKY is
visible. They have phenomenal taste in books and the staff are
elfen-like in their friendliness and helpfulness."
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Book Trailer of the Day: Peep Show: Erotic Tales of Exhibitionism and Voyeurism edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Cleis Press), who whispered in our ear that the trailer "may be a little risque but there's no nudity and it's designed to give a sense of being a voyeur and exhibitionist."
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Amy Santo has joined Tantor Audio as marketing manager, where she will, among other things, guide the relaunch of the unabridged audio publisher's website.