Remember, every buying decision offers a choice … maybe saying “not right now” isn’t such a bad thing. I like stuff as much as the next person, but maybe one-click technology brings impulse buying to a level that’s not quite so healthy. The average clothing purchase sees fewer than seven wearings. Yet all that spending comes at a cost to more than our collective credit card balances. Click and feel the cascading waterfall of marketing/sales chatter flow across the inbox, social media stream and text messages. In other words, our country’s economic engine is our personal spending, which makes it almost patriotic to spend.Īdd technology tools to the mix, and spending grows even more frictionless. Private consumption (you and me buying stuff) accounts for 68.7% of nominal GDP (well over half of this country’s economic output goes to consumerism GDP stands as a sort of rough proxy for the size of the economy). Thought number 3: Why are you buying at all? I know, I know, America thrives as a culture of consumerism. Either way, we get our book - but as we shop our choice can shape the future of retail. Orders directly through add to an earning pool split among all independent booksellers - the company claims to have generated more than $17.2 million dollars for local bookstores since its March 2020 launch.ī hasn’t created an end-all and be-all, but it illustrates that we can hold onto the easy-order-middle-of-the-night shopping experience we’ve come to expect but still support local and independent businesses. Your favorite local bookstore receives sales credit for the book but doesn’t get tangled in the barrier of fulfillment logistics. In all cases, the order goes to wholesaler Ingram, which delivers the books to your home. You can order directly from, you can use to order from your favorite bookstore by name, or your bookstore might incorporate as its commerce engine.
It has all the convenience of online ordering and delivery, within a bookstore wrapper. It serves as a sort of commerce platform for independent booksellers. It operates as a benefit corporation, which means that part of its governance includes a measurement of the public good money can flow to shareholders, but the company also holds accountability to certain social targets. Shop Online with Bookshop.”īookshop launched last year, founded by Andy Hunter who also founded Electric Literature, Catapult Press, and Literary Hub, known as ways to keep books relevant in the digital age. So this season, I’ve made an intentional choice to order books from ( whose tag line reads “Support Local Bookshops. We all know that the rise of Amazon hurt local booksellers of all stripes, an outcome I’m not sure anyone fully realized two decades ago. I proudly (and a bit geekily bookishly, I suspect) wore that Amazon affiliate T-shirt they sent us. I liked buying and selling used books, too, delighted to connect with others doing the same. From the 2021 vantage point, it seems hard to realize just how revolutionary this seemed at the time.Īs a reader, I delighted in being able to find titles not available in my local stores (both chain and locally owned). Way back when my web-based content company jumped in as an early Amazon affiliate - it was so exciting to be able to curate a collection of books for our audience, make it easy for them to order, and make a tiny sliver of revenue ourselves. Books, as we all know, represented Amazon’s first product. Thought number 2: We make choices every time we purchase something.