E-Book Consumers Drive More Sales & The Popularity of eBook Reading Platforms
From the BISG (Book Industry Study Group):
E-book consumers are increasing their purchase of books — both print and e-book formats — online and especially through in-app purchasing, and decreasing their use of brick-and-mortar stores, according to the Book Industry Study Group (BISG)’s closely watched Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading survey. The first installment in Volume Three of the survey reveals that more than half of e-book readers increased their use of apps to purchase books and more than one-third increased their use of general retail websites such as Amazon.com. The gains for these digital vendors come at the expense of brick and mortar bookstores, even independents. More than a third of e-book buyers decreased their spending at national chains and 29% said they are buying less from their local indie.
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Findings also show that while dedicated e-readers remain the dominant e-reading platform, especially among Power Buyers, multi-function tablet devices and smartphones are gaining in popularity. Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading results show:
- Almost 17% of respondents indicated that tablets were the devices most used to read e-books — up from 13% in the previous survey.
- Respondents who preferred smartphones jumped from 5.3% to 9.2%.
- Dedicated e-readers were preferred by 60.9% of all respondents, down from 71.6% in the previous survey.
Since November 2009, Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading has been tracking the habits and preferences of book consumers who say they have acquired an e-book or a dedicated e-reading device within the past 18 months. Volume Three is sponsored by Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, and Harlequin.
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About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.