Question

Career Situation: What Would You Do? For some years now, you’ve owned a small specialty bookshop in a college town. You sell some textbooks but mainly cater to a broader customer base. Your store always stocks the latest fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books. Recent numbers show a steep decline in sales, including of books that would normally be considered best sellers. You suspect this is because of the growing popularity of e-books and e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook. Some of your friends say it’s time to close up because your market is dying. Is it hopeless, or is there a business strategy that might yet save the store?

Answer 1

Answer:

Considering the current market and the wide growth of e-books, I would prefer to close the bookstore and establish a new business.

Explanation:

The bookstore shown in the question above has a greater focus on academic books, since it is established in a university city.

As we know, academic books tend to have high economic value, in addition to being heavy and intended for university students, who generally have reduced and weakened economic power. In this scenario, these students will prefer to use digital books, as they are cheaper, do not take up space and can all be taken to class through a digital reader.

In other words, students will prefer to buy digital books, which shows the impending decline in bookstore sales, which even if it offered discounts and promotions would not be able to compete with the attractive prices of digital books.

In that case, I would prefer to close the bookstore and start a more profitable and promising new business.