Booksellers

Amazon’s march of conquest in the book market continues at pace. The percentage of print-book readers using the online giant rose 7% between 2014 and 2016, with two thirds of all book buyers using Amazon. 

The UK has only one large remaining national high street chain focused specifically on books– Waterstones, which has about 30% of the non-Amazon market. Most of the remainder is taken by WHSmith, which has about 25% of it, the Works, with 15%, and Tesco, with 13%. The others, including Blackwells and Foyles, have only a few per cent each. 

The independent bookshop sector is not faring well. There are still 894 independent bookshops in the UK, but since 2005, the number has fallen by 42%.

Rating highlights

The anti-social finance category broken down

Our worst rating for the likely use of tax avoidance strategies was awarded to Alibris, Waterstones, Abebooks, Nook, Apple, Google, the Book Depository, Tesco and Amazon. Our middle rating went to Kobo and WH Smith. All others got our best rating. 

The following companies were marked down for excessive directors pay: WH Smith (highest wage £3.9 million), Nook (highest wage $2,9 million), Google (highest wage over $100 million), The Works (highest paid £1.8 million), Tesco (highest paid £4.6 million) and Apple (five people received over $25 million).

Environmental reporting and supply chain management

This is not a sector brimming with corporate social responsibility policies.

We expect companies to discuss their key environmental impacts, be taking measures to reduce them, and to present independently audited environmental performance data. But hardly any of them were - every company but WH Smith, Tesco and Better World Books got our worst rating for Environmental Reporting. 

On the management of workers' rights in supplier companies (Supply Chain Management category on the table), the only companies that got a best rating were WH Smith, Tesco and Oxfam. Apple got a middle, and all the others we rated got a worst. We did not rate Ebooks.com and NearSt in this category because they are digital-only and don’t sell physical goods. 

Timber sourcing

As books are made of paper, this is a key area for this sector, and we rated all of the shops that sell paper books on their published policies on timber sourcing. To achieve a best rating we expect to see a commitment to not source illegal or unsustainable timber but to use a high percentage of FSC certified timber or recycled paper.

Oxfam, Tesco and WH Smith both had good policies.

As far as we could find, none of the others had a wood sourcing policy.

E-books

Amazon’s monopoly over the e-book market is virtually complete. The Booksellers Association estimates that its share of total UK e-book sales is as high as 95%.[1] 

When other companies have tried to get into the game, they’ve rapidly given up again: Book Glutton, FictionWise and Books on Board closed in 2013.  Nokia Reading, Sony Reader Store, Diesel Ebooks, Ebook.com, Samsung Books and Scholastic Storia shut in 2014. Tesco Blinkbox Books, Entitle, and Flipkart Ebooks followed suit in 2015. Oyster, Waterstones, Txtr, Sainsbury’s Entertainment gave up in 2016, and Nook pulled out of the UK in the same year, although you can still buy e-books for non-Nook devices from Barnes and Noble in the US.

The tiny proportion of sales that aren’t from Amazon are now largely from Apple iBooks, WHSmith and Google Play Store.

E-books now account for around 18% of total book sales. After growing very fast they have now levelled off while print sales have revived, which has prompted lots of speculation in the media about the end of the digital revolution. 

E-readers

Amazon’s hegemony over e-books is connected to its domination over e-readers. Kindle almost entirely owns the e-ink market, with Kobo and Bookeen being its only real remaining UK competitors. See our guide to e-readers. 

Officially you can only use Amazon’s own e-books on Kindles. However, there are ways to get non-Amazon books onto Kindles. We explain how to below. 

Ownership of e-readers has also plateaued at around 29% of adults.

European Commission’s investigations

In June 2015 the European Union competition regulators opened an investigation into Amazon’s practices in the digital book world, focused on the company’s controversial rule that publishers must not sell their books for less to anyone else. Amazon is currently in talks with the regulators about the matter, but as of October 2016, no ruling had appeared. 

The Booksellers Association has tried to get the regulators to also look at Amazon’s practices in the physical book market, although no investigation into this has yet been launched. 

Keeping books on the high street

Research from Bowker Market Research (BMR) and UK Enders Analysis suggest that physical bookshops are critical for book discovery and selection. Enders Analysis argues that Serendipity and accidental discovery generates as much as two-thirds of UK book sales, and that it doesn’t work online.

Yet if consumers want bookshops to continue to exist, they have to support them. The Booksellers Association is on the frontline in the battle against Amazon, and has for several years run a campaign called ‘Keep Books on the High Street’. They have campaigned for local bookshops to receive more preferential government treatment, and produced “we pay our taxes” badges for window displays. 

While nobody is imagining that online trade is going to go away, the Association has argued that just shifting ten per cent of online shopping back onto the high street would make a colossal difference to local traders.

How to find independent booksellers

You can find your local independent bookshop by searching www.indiebound.org.uk

This site also offers a book recommendation section, where local bookshops give advice on the best latest releases, and gives details of Independent Booksellers Week.