Business Survey in Focus: Structural Change in the Bookselling Market

Online trade as a share of total turnover in German retailing is growing steadily. One of the segments most heavily impacted by this structural change is book retailing. While local booksellers face falling turnover, demand for books and ebooks via the internet is rising significantly. The results of the Ifo Business Survey for booksellers shows that they are increasingly striving to keep their stock overhangs as low as possible. Despite the recent slight improvement in the business climate, the majority of companies assess stocks of unsold books as too high. To counteract this trend, booksellers are also adopting a very cautious approach to orders. Order plans have therefore been far more restrictive than in past years for some time now. The steadily shrinking order volumes reflect developments in bookselling in recent years. A growing number of booksellers have reduced their retail space or, in some cases, have even closed some outlets. Overall, it is notable that the business climate series is almost consistently negative. This makes bookselling the retailing segment with by far the most negative business climate in recent years, and leaves it a long way behind clothes retailing. The problems that structural transformation entails are clearly reflected in the business survey test results.