There were always a lot of little local bookstores, but they had very limited selections. In NYC, if you wanted anything but a bestseller, you went down to the B&N near Union Square. They had everything, though the Union Square area was a lot seedier than it is now.
Then came the big box stores. They provided the same kind of selection but at a variety of urban and suburban locations. A lot of the smaller bookstores, independents and smaller chain stores, were forced out of business. If nothing else, parking was a problem. There was no point in fighting for a place to park, then finding that they didn’t have the book you were looking for when you could just go a big box store. The little guys could survive, but they needed to provide personal and community oriented service. In my town, it was the small chain (B Dalton) store that closed, while the independent seller survived.
Amazon hurt the small book sellers, but it was the big box stores that really got hit. Combine increasing suburban congestion with overnight delivery and the parking and traffic issues vanished. B&N was always into the delivery culture, so they understood what Amazon was doing and could fight it, but Borders seemed to be stuck in the 1980s.
I’m a big Amazon fan these days. I even bought my last lawn mower and barbeque grill from them. If more local merchants delivered, and offered better selection, I would have ordered locally. I don’t own a pickup truck. I still shop locally when I can, but the local bookstore is really limited. They get by providing great service, but that can only go so far.
