LaurieSanders
February 14th, 2011, 11:48 PM
Change has already happened, in fact, it’s been quietly going on in the background of our lives without much notice since the advent of the internet.
Back before the internet when we needed or wanted something we went to one of the shops in our town or city and purchased it from one of the retailers who had it in stock. If we wanted something more specialized than the shops in our town or city carried we drove to a bigger city to purchase it there. If it was still more specialized we might buy it from a catalog. But most of the time, for most of our every day purchases, when we were in the mood to purchase something we made our selection based upon what was available locally.
This gave the shopkeepers in our towns and cities tremendous power because in essence they decided what was available for us to purchase. Only if they failed in their duty to stock the things we wanted to buy did they lose our business to the next larger town or to a catalog merchant.
So, in the pre-internet days there was pressure on local merchants to stock what local people would purchase. Local people’s purchases were largely influenced by what the merchants chose to stock so there was kind of a two way pressure. Consumers pressured merchants to stock what they wanted and merchant's stocked the items that consumers could most easily choose from.
Manufacturers experienced pressure to produce only those things that would sell in substantial quantities in predominantly local markets to be viable.
The nexus of purchasing decision was local and expanded outward when we couldn’t find what we needed or wanted. For example, there wasn’t a lot of money in manufacturing bath soap in bar form once liquid bath soap came out and people who had always purchased bath soap in bars began to purchase it in the liquid form instead. Brands of bar soap decreased and brands of liquid soap increased due to the purchasing demands of consumers. Fewer manufacturers found manufacturing bar soap viable because fewer people were buying it. Because fewer people were buying it fewer merchants were stocking a large number of brands of bar soap. Gradually the number of brands of bar soap declined.
When the internet arrived it ushered in big changes that have impacted not only how we find and buy the things we want but what things are available to purchase. With the advent of the internet it became possible to easily shop for things outside our local geographic area.
With the arrival of the internet we no longer needed to look to our local merchants to stock the things we wanted. If we wanted a new red sweater for the Christmas party we might shop in our local stores first, but if we didn’t find the red sweater we wanted from the five or six styles stocked locally we could simply type “red sweater” into a search engine like Yahoo and suddenly we would have hundreds of styles of red sweaters from which to choose.
The same things that have influenced how we buy red sweaters have also influenced how we buy books.
In the pre-internet days books, like red sweaters and bars of bath soap, were stocked by local merchants who did their best to stock the titles their customers would purchase. With this model publishers published titles that they thought vast numbers of readers would purchase. They largely shied away from things that they thought would sell in smaller numbers because it wasn’t financially feasible to print and distribute thousands of copies of books that only a handful of readers in a local area would purchase.
However, when the internet arrived and Amazon was born Amazon served as a corner bookstore that existed on every desk that had a computer on it. This made lots of books that were not financially viable in the marketplace comprised of small, local, brick and mortar stores viable.
There is probably not a lot of demand for books on how to make wood cutting boards in Keokuk, Iowa. In fact, it’s entirely possible that no one in the town of Keokuk would be interested in buying a book on how to make wood cutting boards. However, when the book is listed on Amazon and is available not only to people in Keokuk but people in New Providence, Des Moines, Indianapolis, London, New York City, and thousands of other locales around the globe a book about making wood cutting boards does become viable.
There isn’t sufficient demand for that kind of book on a local level, even within large cities with large populations, but globally there is a level of demand that makes at least a print on demand version of the book viable.
The internet has made books that at one time would not have been financially viable financially feasible to publish. Digital publishing adds an additional spin to what is and isn’t financially feasible. We will look at the role(s) that digital publishing plays in tomorrow's lesson.
Back before the internet when we needed or wanted something we went to one of the shops in our town or city and purchased it from one of the retailers who had it in stock. If we wanted something more specialized than the shops in our town or city carried we drove to a bigger city to purchase it there. If it was still more specialized we might buy it from a catalog. But most of the time, for most of our every day purchases, when we were in the mood to purchase something we made our selection based upon what was available locally.
This gave the shopkeepers in our towns and cities tremendous power because in essence they decided what was available for us to purchase. Only if they failed in their duty to stock the things we wanted to buy did they lose our business to the next larger town or to a catalog merchant.
So, in the pre-internet days there was pressure on local merchants to stock what local people would purchase. Local people’s purchases were largely influenced by what the merchants chose to stock so there was kind of a two way pressure. Consumers pressured merchants to stock what they wanted and merchant's stocked the items that consumers could most easily choose from.
Manufacturers experienced pressure to produce only those things that would sell in substantial quantities in predominantly local markets to be viable.
The nexus of purchasing decision was local and expanded outward when we couldn’t find what we needed or wanted. For example, there wasn’t a lot of money in manufacturing bath soap in bar form once liquid bath soap came out and people who had always purchased bath soap in bars began to purchase it in the liquid form instead. Brands of bar soap decreased and brands of liquid soap increased due to the purchasing demands of consumers. Fewer manufacturers found manufacturing bar soap viable because fewer people were buying it. Because fewer people were buying it fewer merchants were stocking a large number of brands of bar soap. Gradually the number of brands of bar soap declined.
When the internet arrived it ushered in big changes that have impacted not only how we find and buy the things we want but what things are available to purchase. With the advent of the internet it became possible to easily shop for things outside our local geographic area.
With the arrival of the internet we no longer needed to look to our local merchants to stock the things we wanted. If we wanted a new red sweater for the Christmas party we might shop in our local stores first, but if we didn’t find the red sweater we wanted from the five or six styles stocked locally we could simply type “red sweater” into a search engine like Yahoo and suddenly we would have hundreds of styles of red sweaters from which to choose.
The same things that have influenced how we buy red sweaters have also influenced how we buy books.
In the pre-internet days books, like red sweaters and bars of bath soap, were stocked by local merchants who did their best to stock the titles their customers would purchase. With this model publishers published titles that they thought vast numbers of readers would purchase. They largely shied away from things that they thought would sell in smaller numbers because it wasn’t financially feasible to print and distribute thousands of copies of books that only a handful of readers in a local area would purchase.
However, when the internet arrived and Amazon was born Amazon served as a corner bookstore that existed on every desk that had a computer on it. This made lots of books that were not financially viable in the marketplace comprised of small, local, brick and mortar stores viable.
There is probably not a lot of demand for books on how to make wood cutting boards in Keokuk, Iowa. In fact, it’s entirely possible that no one in the town of Keokuk would be interested in buying a book on how to make wood cutting boards. However, when the book is listed on Amazon and is available not only to people in Keokuk but people in New Providence, Des Moines, Indianapolis, London, New York City, and thousands of other locales around the globe a book about making wood cutting boards does become viable.
There isn’t sufficient demand for that kind of book on a local level, even within large cities with large populations, but globally there is a level of demand that makes at least a print on demand version of the book viable.
The internet has made books that at one time would not have been financially viable financially feasible to publish. Digital publishing adds an additional spin to what is and isn’t financially feasible. We will look at the role(s) that digital publishing plays in tomorrow's lesson.