A Eulogy for the Used Bookshoppe

One of the real casualties of the changes in the consumer market of the past decade or so has been the good used book or record store. They don't really exist anymore, as far as I'm concerned, and here's why:

I'm a 'list shopper'. I have limited resources and thus must choose those things I intend to buy. If I can afford to buy some records or some books, I take my (extensive, I must emphasize) list to the respective shop and try to find something from the list. I am invariably frustrated and demoralized by the consequent lack of results from this activity. I can never find the things I want. I have been convinced, by such innovations as Ebay and Amazon, that what I want can be found, and that there is someone out there waiting to sell it to me. But the limited scale of the brick-and-mortar store does a miserable job of providing an outlet for this reality anymore.

Another factor is that the demographic which frequents used book and record stores has changed. 'List shoppers' don't use them anymore because of the aforementioned superiority of the online retailers. Thus, shops have to market their wares instead to 'trend shoppers' and 'genre shoppers'.

'Trend shoppers' are those who can get all the music they need from the window displays of Sam Goody and all the books they need from the paperback carousel at the local drugstore. They don't have anything specific they want - they just want something and they tend to be happy with whatever disposable flotsam is available from expending the least amount of energy.

'Genre shoppers' are a bit but more respectable. Genre shoppers know and like one specific type of music, or one specific sub-sub-genre of book. They rarely if ever stray from their respective genres, and never really care what their next book or record is - they just know they'll find it if they make a beeline for their genre the instant they set foot into the shop. They're the ones who used book and record stores specifically cater to. I'd say most of my friends are of this type, and I often display characteristics of this type of behavior myself.

However, in addition to being a mild 'genre shopper' I'm also incrediibly ecumenical and specific about what music or reading material I'll expend my limited lifespan consuming, thus I reserach my genre(s) and plan my prospective purchases well ahead of time. I not only tend to restrict myself to specific types of preferred music and books, but to specific, identifiable preference lists of material within those genres.

This means that used book and record stores are especially sad places for me, though. Not only do they have a far more limited selection of available wares than the online outlets, but they must also maintain a large enough margin of popular titles to attract browsers and 'trend shoppers'. Thus, I've learned, the key to my continued happiness as a docile consumer is to stick with Amazon and Ebay, and stop entering a bookstore expecting that epiphanous 'eureka!' item to hit me in the face every time. That was an experience best kept in the '90s.