Books became the dominant repositories of human knowledge with the advent of the printing press. Even with the advent of computers with huge storage spaces, books continue to hold a position of dominance. Despite the ever-growing popularity of computers and the online publication of the books, the old charm of reading a novel reclining in the comfort of the bed or chair still holds a powerful sway over the readers everywhere. This explains the continued existence, popularity and even proliferation of bookstores in the face of strong competition from computers. There are thousands of bookstores, with millions of titles on all subjects, scattered over the world. Bookstores can be found even in remote corners and rural areas of the world. Some bookstores are general in nature, stocking thousands of books on every imaginable subject or topic. Big and multinational companies are involved in selling books; their stores are found in all the major cities of the world. Bookstore owners have found different ways to attract the customers. For example, there are bookstores that specialize in millions of used, rare and out-of-print books. United States-based Advanced Book Exchange, Inc. is one such example. There are similar stores in the U.S., as well as countries of Europe, Canada and Australia. You can also find used, rare and out-of-print books from Amazon.com. You will come across bookstores that attract customers by providing them the price lists of the different book selling companies. This gives the readers an idea about the competitive prices of the books. The readers can go for the cheapest books, which obviously are available in their own bookstores. There are also bookstores that specialize in selling only technical books. While some stores attract the customers by offering them the latest brand new editions of the technical books that naturally are costly, there are others who sell used books of the same type at cheaper rates. Similarly, some bookstores offer a percentage discount on all their books - sometimes even for the latest editions of highly specialized subjects. |
