Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/11/costco-to-only-sell-books-during-holiday-season.html
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Judging by the book table at my local Costco, I can’t imagine this would take more than an hour a week.
This reason is bullshit. I’m sure this “executive” is in the DJT school of never reading a book, including the ones he’s allegedly written.
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Sounds like a good opportunity to support your local independent bookseller.
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I came here to point out a grammatical error in both the headline and your text. You do not mean to say " Costco to only sell books during holiday season" which implies that they will sell nothing but books. Try this: "Costco to sell books only during holiday season. Geez.
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And / or use bookshop.org, which supports indepenent local bookstores as well.
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they’ll only stock books during peak holiday shopping season.
From the headline, I thought that they will sell only books during the holidays, and nothing else. Vs not selling books during the year, only during the holidays.
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I saw an author doing a book signing at Costco once. I was even tempted to buy his book without knowing who he was or what it was about because it looked so sad. He was at a small table with a printed piece of paper that said “Book signing” between the very modest book section and the patio furniture.
If I didn’t know better I would have thought he was David Thorne playing a prank and in retrospect I can’t imagine why Costco would even allow a book signing in the first place.
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I came here to make a comment about misplaced modifiers, and I see I’m not the only one entertained or confused by their choice of wording. A proper, and less confusing headline would read, “Costco to sell books only during holiday season.” Same amount of words but in the correct order.
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Same here, although I was all set to commend Costco for rejecting Xmas profits in order to promote literacy. Shocker! Turns out it was the opposite.
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Hmn. Retailers like Walmart force the vendors to stock and also maintain their inventory on the shelves. I don’t know about Costco. Is everything managed by staff and not the actual vendors?
So I am struggling to believe the labor is the issue. I would bet that books are just not profitable as other items. Then again, perhaps if I research more I can find out rather than guessing.
Or maybe someone here has better info.
Echo the support local bookstores!
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Fixed. Thanks!
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“Costco across the country was a big outlet for books,” he said. “There are now fewer and fewer places to buy books in a retail environment.”
2 blocks from my house I have 3 used book stores, one deals exclusively in French materials. There’s also a Salvation Army with about 100 linear feet of book shelves. The Safeway has a shelf or two… Walmart, the Christian Supply store has new books (limited topic selection of course). At the mall there’s a Chapters… and the McNally Robinson flagship store… plus 3 public libraries within walking distance.
Book availability isn’t an issue in my community. Grocery stores are a whole other matter.
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Yep. Thanks to this site, there is never a reason to buy books from Amazon or a big box store, even if your area is some kind of book desert with no local independent booksellers. And even as someone who works at an independent bookstore, I urge everyone to make good use of their local library and apps like Libby and Hoopla. There’s really no need to personally own every book you ever read- save that for your favorites and special books that don’t translate well to digital or audiobooks formats.
Sure, if there were any. The only real independent bookseller I know about isn’t remotely local. I live in a city of about a million people, and even the big chain stores are mostly gone now, thanks to Amazon.
Yeah, that was my reading - which I assumed was a joke, since the likelihood was, uh, extremely low, especially since I noticed Costco gave up selling books a while ago.
Sorry to hear it. But really? I know many have closed down but I have been seeing more and more bookstores not just in LA or San Francisco or elsewhere in California but recently in Colorado, Boston, and other cities.
And there’s always abebooks.com. Understood that it is owned by Amazon but what I read on Reddit from booksellers is that they can make some money from their used stuff there.
And I know I saw another link up above for online buying from independent booksellers.
Also, a local bookseller will sell you something via phone or their website.
Yeah. I keep an eye out for new stores that could have opened, but it’s been a steady decline in the post-Amazon era. (The only thing I’ve noticed increasing in recent years is fake listings for stores that don’t exist, or mischaracterized shops that don’t sell books.) The closest Barnes and Noble now is 10 miles away (I think it’s one of two left in the city, with another chain that used to have multiple outlets here reduced to one store as well). There’s some independent specialty bookstores (e.g. children’s books, Spanish language, a used bookshop, etc), but the independent bookstore I actually go to is about 40 miles away (and since I have no other reason to go over there these days, I haven’t been there in years). There might be something in a closer city, but which isn’t nearly as good.
I don’t know why things are especially dire here for book shops, but they are. I really miss browsing a real, physical bookshop, but buying online from non-local shops is the only real option.
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This makes me a bit sad. My son picked out a set of three Minecraft themed chapter books on a CostCo trip back in November(ish). I’ve since purchased all the books in the series (which is ongoing) and we read a chapter a night when he doesn’t bring something home from school. I would never have discovered them, otherwise, as I never see them advertised anywhere. I didn’t even see them at the Scholastic book fair at my son’s school this year, and they had a whole table of books devoted to Minecraft.
I didn’t buy a ton of books there (CostCo, I mean), but there were occasionally real gems.
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Ugh. So frustrating.
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Not nearly as frustrating as a concurrent decline in local grocery stores that sell actual ingredients - at least I can still buy books online for the same price.
Now I’m wondering how much the two are linked. Certainly Amazon has played a significant role in both. In terms of groceries, Whole Foods bought up or destroyed a lot of “health food” (and independent grocery) stores that had a variety of bulk ingredients, and then when Amazon bought them, they pivoted hard to prepared food items. Now even basic things like formerly common grains and legumes, if you can find them at all, are pre-cooked and/or in tiny “boutique” packages at double (or more) the cost. Some things just disappeared from shelves. (When Trader Joe’s stopped carrying whole wheat couscous, I thought I’d make it myself - only to realize I simply couldn’t get durum wheat flour anywhere these days.) You can buy everything online, but at ten times the price…
It’s like the same dynamics enshittifying the web are doing the same thing to physical retail…
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You many not have any in your area but grocery stores with international in their name can be a goldmine for stuff like that.
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