The annual “summer slump” is over in September: a good time to take a look at the sales figures, to take stock and to prepare for the coming months. That is not a very pleasant task this year either: the numbers are less positive than hoped, the balance is often negative compared to the years before Corona. And the coming months are likely to be challenging times for the book trade and publishers once once more.
Text: Linn Ritsch
Covid as a benchmark – before, during or following the pandemic
After a first look at the figures written by the Austrian book market in the first half of 2022, an unremarkable picture seems to emerge at first. Total sales increased slightly by 1.5 percent compared to the same period of the previous year. The fact that brick-and-mortar retail was able to record an increase of 16.8 percent is gratifying. Here, however, it must be taken into account that the previous year was still characterized by pandemic-related closures.
Many customers who met their needs online during the lockdown have apparently returned to bookstores this year. However, the growth that was achieved in stationary retail this year should not hide the fact that sales in stationary book retailing are still well below 2019, the year before the crisis, at minus 6.3 percent. Total market sales also fell by 0.3 percent compared to 2019. Austria is no exception. The significantly larger German book market is in a similar position: The stationary book trade in the neighboring country recorded an increase of 15.3 percent compared to 2021. But here, too, this first positive impression cannot distract from the overall difficult situation. Compared to 2019, 11.1 percent of sales are missing in the first half of this year.
Due to the crisis, online sales have fallen once more
The pandemic also plays the main role in the classification of online sales figures: the reopening of bookstores brought online business a minus of 15.4 percent compared to the pandemic year 2021. Compared to 2019, however, online trade recorded an increase of 10.6 percent: even if many Since purchases are once once more being made in brick-and-mortar stores, the buying habits have changed with the pandemic: there is a slight trend towards online shopping. Despite the increase in competence in digital sales, this is particularly bitter for brick-and-mortar retail because experience has shown that the lion’s share is accounted for by Amazon.
If you look at the stationary book trade and e-commerce together, there is a weak increase of 1.1 percent compared to the previous year. (The 0.4 percent that is still missing for the overall increase of 1.5 was generated in the train station and drugstore trade.) Compared to 2019, the sales figures are at the pre-crisis level.
Commodity groups – losers, winners and the special case
A look at the product groups shows which topics sell well and which books tend to remain slow sellers. Consistently negative numbers were written for guidebooks, non-fiction and specialist books: All three lose both in comparison to the previous year and compared to 2019.
Less sales were achieved during and following the pandemic, especially with guidebooks and specialist books. Compared to the previous year, sales in both groups fell by around 10 percent.
A special case is travel literature. It has by far the largest increase, with sales increasing by more than 50 percent. This is not surprising when compared to 2021, when freedom of travel was massively restricted. A comparison with 2019 paints a different picture: sales fell by 18.5 percent. There can therefore be no talk of a recovery in this product group.
Only children’s and youth literature turned out to be the “pandemic winner”: Here, sales increased by 12.7 percent compared to 2019. Since then, however, sales in this area have leveled off once more. A comparison with the previous year shows an increase of only 1.8 percent in this product group.
After the crisis is before the crisis
During the summer months Corona has moved into the background, one would like to breathe a sigh of relief and look forward to better times. Instead, this crisis is being joined by others: Experience has taught us that the pandemic will be remembered once more in autumn with an increasing number of cases. At the same time, skyrocketing raw material prices and the current energy crisis are hitting the industry hard.
The sales figures in the book trade show that books are becoming a luxury good in times of crisis: Even if the price development in the first half of 2022 is almost in the opposite direction to general inflation – prices have risen by only 1.7 percent and books remain affordable – 1 percent fewer books sold than before the pandemic.
Overall, a slight improvement can be observed compared to the previous year: 1.8 percent more books were sold than in 2021. Nevertheless, the situation in the domestic book industry remains
clearly tense. Especially in the stationary retail sector: 9.4 percent fewer books were sold there than in 2019.
Nevertheless, the mood in the industry is not exclusively gloomy: “As far as sales trends are concerned, we can certainly be cautiously optimistic, since the book trade has always done better than average in times of economic weakness in the past,” says Helmut Zechner, Chairman of the Austrian Booksellers Association. However, the cost increases coming to the book trade (e.g. for energy, transport and KV conclusion) are extremely worrying. “For booksellers it is now more important than ever to calculate very precisely.”
A great deal of commitment and flexibility are required. The past crisis years have shown that both exist in the book industry. Maybe in times like these we need one thing above all: conclusive information and good stories. And the book industry can serve with these two goods.
