Bookstores under threat

NZPA report:

Book chains Borders and Whitcoulls have been put under administration in New Zealand and Australia.

The two chains have about 1000 staff in New Zealand.

Australian parent company REDgroup Retail, which manages operations in both countries, called in voluntary administrators to the business, The Age reported. The jobs of up to 2500 staff were now in doubt, the newspaper said.

REDGroup is controlled by private equity group PEP.

Borders and Whitcoulls made up 85 of the 350 bookshops in New Zealand according to Booksellers New Zealand.

I’m still missing Dymocks. I liked the way they organise their stores. I love Borders Auckland for the range of books they have there. Borders Wellington doesn’t have as many.

It will be sad if these two book chains collapse, but not the end of the world. The Internet has allowed independent bookstores to compete with the giants.

In Newtown, there’s a second hand bookshop called Book Haven. I’ve only once been to the store physically. But they have over 50,000 titles online – I think the largest second hand online collection in New Zealand. They also have a network of other stores, so can find rare books for you.

The shipping charges for Book Haven are only NZ$5/item and they turn up the next day. Amazon charge US$10 for the first item and US$5 for each other item for slowmail andUS$20 for the first item sent fastmail.