green beam city

"I guess Queen Street West is officially dead now," a Globe and Mail piece writes.

As you may have heard, Pages bookstore in the heart of Queen and John will be officially closing as of August 31, 2009.

Obviously the demise of a bookstore that has been in business for 30 years is surely tragic, and it seems like this just one piece of the continued fall of (1) Queen Street West, (2) independent bookstores, and (3) independent retailing altogether.

Pages cites the inability to find an alternative location with suitable rent for its closure. But really when it comes down to it, people are simply not buying enough books.

Down the street on Queen Street East, the Librairie Champlain, Toronto's only french bookstore also closed its doors in May, citing similar reasons: not enough sales. In response to this, World's Biggest Bookstore (an Indigo brand) opens a French-language boutique in an attempt to fill that consumer void.

This makes me wonder: Are independent retailers doomed in this increasingly corporate retail environment? Should we accept the demise of these retailers simply that they weren't responsive to market conditions? Are there systemic issues (e.g. low corporate taxes) that make independents lose its competitive edge?

More importantly, are independents really worth saving?

Vertigo Books, a Maryland bookstore that encountered a similar fate as Pages, says yes.

Vertigo claims that our shopping dollars "help create the community [we] want to live in" and presents an anecdote that for every $10 you spend at locally-owned businesses, $4.50 stays in our community. Here's a list of their comparisons.

• Vertigo Books $4.50
• Barnes & Noble / Borders / Costco $1.30
• Amazon $0.00

Whether these numbers are reliable or not, I think we can agree that independents do (or have the opportunity to) make a greater contribution to the local community than corporate chains. Independents (1) are more likely to offer higher wages, (2) are more likely to demonstrate commitment to its staff, (3) are more likely for staff to be committed to the store, (4) are more receptive to local products and talent, and (5) are simply more responsive to local conditions.

Corporate chains like Chapters-Indigo operate on a national level. Their corporate structure, large operational scale, and strive for a consistent "store experience" simply makes it too rigid to be responsive to local demands. Having worked at Chapters, I can tell you that the books displayed on promotional tables at each Chapters, Indigo, and Coles store are preselected each month by corporate head office. There's simply no interest in featuring local talent and surely is no true interest in creating community.

Online bookstores follow a similar predicament. There's no chance to bring about that sense of local community.

The anecodal numbers presented by Vertigo does have a point. Money made in an independent store are likely to remain in the local community, while money made by a corporation are much more geographically diffused and are proportionately held by fewer hands (e.g. executives).

So what can we do? I admit, I'm a bit of a hypocrite. It's just so easy to buy a book on Amazon-- the economics makes it a no-brainer. But how can we redistribute the competitive advantage of firms? The only thing I can think of is to introduce taxes-- increased taxes for corporations.

At the same time, I'm sure there are externalities for increasing corporate taxes, especially as we're increasingly competing in a uncontrolled global marketplace.

Essentially, I think independents are doomed, but I'm intrigued to hear your ideas to keep independents alive.

Photo by Tim Shore of BlogTO.

Deadpool Looming for Pages Bookstore - [blogto.com]
Pages to Fold - [torontoist.com]
Save Pages Facebook group - [facebook.com]
Goodbye: We are Closing - [vertigobooks.blogsome.com]