With the opening of a new bookstore in San Diego (video.nbcsandiego.com/player/), Goodwill Industries is targeting itself to compete directly with independent booksellers and may be squeezing the already competitive market of independent booksellers even more. Although Goodwill spokespeople make a good point by noting that books were often lost in the mass of goods found in a typical Goodwill store, this move is still a risky one for the company and its image. Bookselling is a specialized business, often taking sellers time and energy to get up to speed. I know; I’m an independent bookseller.
As someone who primarily sells rare books, I don’t feel threatened by Goodwill’s move to open a bookstore in a University City strip mall. The books are reasonably priced, from three to eight dollars each and are primarily mass market books, ranging from current bestsellers to classic fiction and nonfiction, according to a news report from NBC in San Diego. They aren’t competing directly with me but they are competing with plenty of other sellers, some of whom are having a tough go of it already. By doing this, they may actually be creating new clients for Goodwill services by putting booksellers out of business. The last thing longtime sellers need is another group of bookstores competing with them, offering books at prices way below what they can afford because the vast majority of Goodwill’s books are donated to them, so they can set prices lower than the average bookstore, way lower.
Members of the bookselling community also wonder if Goodwill is moving away from providing goods to its former target clientele, which used to consist of struggling families. By taking books out of Goodwill stores, the company is essentially limiting access to these books only to those people who are aware of the bookstore and/or those able to afford the books, which no longer sell for a few cents on the dollar.
At a price range of between three and eight dollars, they are still a bargain compared to full retail price for new books but may be out of reach for those on limited budgets and directed at the average middle class buyer. In short, Goodwill is competing with more traditional independent bookstores and booksellers, a group already affected by the onslaught of huge superstore type booksellers like Barnes and Noble and Borders. Even stores like Target have expanded their bookselling sections, squeezing the independent sellers even more.
Opinions from actual booksellers can be seen at weberbooks.com/selling/2007/09/goodwill-opening-bookstores-to-sell-its.html
a website which has long been a source of information on current trends in the bookselling industry. Goodwill had already branched out from its usual format when it opened online stores such as the one operated by www.goodwillbooks.com/
I happen to think that this is an ill planned move by Goodwill, doing more to hurt those in the community than to help them. Not only are those most in need of an inexpensive read less likely to find it while getting clothing and other items for their financially stressed families (who may want something for their minds in addition to warm coats for their bodies) but booksellers will lose one more venue for inexpensive finds since the new prices are higher than when a book is sold in Goodwill, perhaps to cover the costs of paying for a separate store, employees, utilities and rent. On the other hand, Goodwill seems to believe that the profit potential in selling books will be best served by having stores dedicated only to selling them and the money earned will be siphoned back to those in need evenutally, offering job training and other services to those in need. I’m just afraid that some of those people will be former booksellers!
