HuffPost Books
Ten years from now will our children or grandchildren even
know what a bookstore was? I live on Long Island, and we no longer have a major
chain bookstore within ten miles of our home. I'm talking about Long Island, a
highly populated are, not somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Thankfully, we
still have some great libraries and a wonderful independent bookstore the next
town over, but the large chain stores are gone and both libraries and indies
are struggling. With the demise of Borders and the closing of our local Barnes
& Noble superstore, chances are that my grandchildren will never enter a
bookstore. How sad is this?
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And on a similar there this editorial from the NZ Listener:
Chapters and Verses in Timaru closed recently after 30 years in business. A month later, Benny’s Books in New Plymouth ceased trading. Now fellow independent bookshop and CD store Parsons in Wellington’s centre is closing its Ernst Plischke-designed doors after 66 years, two years after its Auckland cousin had its final sale.
We know what’s going on. New Zealanders are buying fewer books, and when they do purchase a paperback, glossy art title or e-book, more are using overseas websites. The end of independent bookshops has long been predicted. Are we now in the middle of the end?
Some independents reported excellent growth in 2013, despite sales of books nationally dropping 15% on the previous year. Booksellers say Eleanor Catton’s Booker Prize win made us more positive about local literature in particular and books in general. But we can’t bank on a Luminaries every year.
The nation’s retailers have been lobbying hard for the Government to lower the level at which GST is applied to goods purchased online. About $1 billion of goods are bought tax-free from overseas websites each year, not counting digital products such as e-books, software, music and films, for which the tax threshold is far higher. Despite Finance Minister Bill English saying last month that ungathered online GST was more of a threat to the tax base than the avoidance structures of multinational companies, retailers would be wise to not hold their collective breath. Little appears to have changed since a 2011 review found it was not cost-effective for Customs to collect GST on physical items under $400.
It’s likely the public purse is losing out on hundreds of millions in GST revenue each year. But increasing the price of online goods would be deeply unpopular. New Zealanders are pragmatic. We want the best in the world, even if we are not always willing to pay for it. If we can get the world’s books for half the price of the local bookshop, this frequently trumps notions of loyalty or patriotism. We don’t care that books are zero-rated for VAT in the UK and that the market is many times our size. We care only that a Londoner can pay £6 for a paperback, whereas we, because of mark-ups and GST, will pay $20, sometimes much more.
The internet has raised expectations so high that no one, not even the most committed independent bookshop, can compete. As a result of Amazon, which now owns The Book Depository as well as rare-books site AbeBooks, we expect to have every book in the world on tap, at a reasonable price.
This may be what most wish. Let me buy what I want, when I want it, at the price I am willing to pay. Good riddance to the usual consequences for consumers of the tyranny of distance: supply constriction and higher prices.
If so, we’ll be left with a few large shops selling books alongside anything else that makes money, our precious libraries and one or two e-book retailers. Local publishers will sell more books directly to customers or perhaps band together somehow in retail. Everything else will come in little packages delivered via the shrinking postal service. But independent bookshops, these places of knowledge and serendipitous discovery?
Reading, as this week’s cover story notes, is a bedrock for all sorts of social and intellectual skills, and we should be making books as accessible and attractive as possible.
There are options. We could remove GST from local cultural goods, with the bureaucratic difficulties that would entail. Or we could go the other way and subsidise independent bookstores and regulate prices to support our culture, as France has done.
Whatever our elected representatives decide to do, it would be pleasing if, in the discussion of tax and business, culture and its value were given at least a passing mention. We should also remember that what’s cheap now may not be cheap tomorrow. After years of steady pressure from investors keen on a return on their money, Amazon said last week it would raise shipping costs. We have been warned.
And on a similar there this editorial from the NZ Listener:
Editorial: the book case
We can no longer ignore the consequences of Kiwis’ penchant for online book-buying.
By The Listener In Editorial
13th February, 2014
We know what’s going on. New Zealanders are buying fewer books, and when they do purchase a paperback, glossy art title or e-book, more are using overseas websites. The end of independent bookshops has long been predicted. Are we now in the middle of the end?
Getty Images/Listener Illustration
The nation’s retailers have been lobbying hard for the Government to lower the level at which GST is applied to goods purchased online. About $1 billion of goods are bought tax-free from overseas websites each year, not counting digital products such as e-books, software, music and films, for which the tax threshold is far higher. Despite Finance Minister Bill English saying last month that ungathered online GST was more of a threat to the tax base than the avoidance structures of multinational companies, retailers would be wise to not hold their collective breath. Little appears to have changed since a 2011 review found it was not cost-effective for Customs to collect GST on physical items under $400.
It’s likely the public purse is losing out on hundreds of millions in GST revenue each year. But increasing the price of online goods would be deeply unpopular. New Zealanders are pragmatic. We want the best in the world, even if we are not always willing to pay for it. If we can get the world’s books for half the price of the local bookshop, this frequently trumps notions of loyalty or patriotism. We don’t care that books are zero-rated for VAT in the UK and that the market is many times our size. We care only that a Londoner can pay £6 for a paperback, whereas we, because of mark-ups and GST, will pay $20, sometimes much more.
The internet has raised expectations so high that no one, not even the most committed independent bookshop, can compete. As a result of Amazon, which now owns The Book Depository as well as rare-books site AbeBooks, we expect to have every book in the world on tap, at a reasonable price.
This may be what most wish. Let me buy what I want, when I want it, at the price I am willing to pay. Good riddance to the usual consequences for consumers of the tyranny of distance: supply constriction and higher prices.
If so, we’ll be left with a few large shops selling books alongside anything else that makes money, our precious libraries and one or two e-book retailers. Local publishers will sell more books directly to customers or perhaps band together somehow in retail. Everything else will come in little packages delivered via the shrinking postal service. But independent bookshops, these places of knowledge and serendipitous discovery?
Reading, as this week’s cover story notes, is a bedrock for all sorts of social and intellectual skills, and we should be making books as accessible and attractive as possible.
There are options. We could remove GST from local cultural goods, with the bureaucratic difficulties that would entail. Or we could go the other way and subsidise independent bookstores and regulate prices to support our culture, as France has done.
Whatever our elected representatives decide to do, it would be pleasing if, in the discussion of tax and business, culture and its value were given at least a passing mention. We should also remember that what’s cheap now may not be cheap tomorrow. After years of steady pressure from investors keen on a return on their money, Amazon said last week it would raise shipping costs. We have been warned.
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